Before I start rambling on about our final day in Oslo, I omitted information regarding the accessibility of the other means of public transportation in the city from yesterdays post, clearly the T-Bane was just too exciting! Asides from the metro, Oslo is also home to a tram and bus network. As in many European cities, the former comprises of old and new rolling stock with only the new having low floor access so you may be waiting for a while for one to come. In contrast, every single bus is accessible, this seems to be a recurring theme across Europe. Anyway, back to today…
As our flight back to Heathrow wasn’t until 5pm, the morning was spent catching up on work emails etc before being kicked out the rooms at 12pm. As per before, we utilised the Flytoget train link between Central station and the airport for which I booked assistance for a certain train. Despite pre-booking, it seems that Norwegian train guards aren’t phased to simply assist regardless.
Now it’s time for the fun bit, THE AIRPORT! Apparently I didn’t register Superbunny onto the BA system which I did but there you go! Once we had faffed about resolving said issue, we were informed that the airports protocol to leave electric wheelchairs at oversized baggage to be collected by the forklifts onto the plane and only manual wheelchairs are allowed up to the gate. Oversized baggage was rather confused by this, however, it turns out that it is only BA’s protocol as they are required to put Superbunny in its own container to avoid any damage…kudos needed here for British Airways!!
Anyway, everything was dandy and we arrived at LHR slightly ahead of schedule for once, however, the answer to yesterdays cliff hanger is ‘kind of’! Although we parked at a remote stand and the lift was waiting to take us to T3, the piece of equipment needed to transfer Superbunny off the container was over at T5 which is at the other side of the vast airfield thus taking approximately 15 minutes to reach us…Heathrow needs forklifts!
So, where is next for me? Of course, Latvia as it is the only remaining country in Northern and Central Europe to roll around unless we are counting the self-governing states (or Romania/Serbia which some class as Central Europe, surely they are located in South East Europe?) which could take a while! Whilst in Latvia, we are staying in and exploring the capital, Riga. Unlike Oslo which is pretty easy to wander around in an electric wheelchair, Riga has taken a little more planning due to the scarceness of accessible taxis and general accessibility. Although the historic centre of Riga is pretty conventional in terms of drop curbs and pedestrian crossings, once you step outside the centre, you are faced with a concept that seemed to be popular to construct within the former USSR countries and indeed China in previous years. We all know that the USSR enjoyed constructing VERY wide roads hence instead of having a series of pedestrian crossings over ground, said architects decided to build huge underpasses with multiple exits which, in theory is good as it helps traffic flow etc, however, the majority of exits have steps rather than ramps making it near impossible to cross even in a manual wheelchair. I have noted that Riga have installed lifts at a few major exits but nonetheless I have booked a hotel which is near an over ground crossing and on the airport bus route hence everything should work (in theory!). We shall see on the 3rd October!
In the meantime, here is another photo of the stunning T-Bane…
