I had a flight scheduled from Luton Airport at 7am. Staying one more night in London would cost about $200 so I booked one night stay in Easyhotel Luton for $50. Easyhotel Luton is located in 200 m from bus and train stations. Bus to the Luton airport costs about 3 UK pounds and the trip to airport takes about 10 min. The room at Easyhotel is what should be expected for $50, a very basic minimalist furnishings, no windows.
1,008,184 passengers travelled through London Luton Airport (LLA) in November 2107, an increase of 5.6% when compared with the same month in the previous year. This is the first time the airport has welcomed over a million travellers in the month of November. It also marks 44 months of consecutive growth at the airport. LLA is investing over £150 million to transform the airport and increase annual capacity by 50% to 18 million passengers by 2020. The redevelopment will deliver much-needed capacity.
Yet this growth does not affect the Luton city, visually at least. The Luton city itself contrasts sharply with London, a grim drab faceless hole of a city, populated with Arab, African, Polish and Romanian immigrants. There is a Polish food supermarket in the central square. It was a Saturday night and the native English population hitting the Luton streets was mostly drunk.
For dinner I dived into the Italian restaurant La Trattoria, a Polish-family run homely eatery. The food was rather Polish than Italian, bland meat with potatoes and boiled vegetables, totally lacking salt and pepper and pasta drawn in greasy sauce. I guess they never heard about basil, oregano and rosemary. Before I made an order the owner’s wife engaged me in a long inquisitive conversation, probably her idea of a friendly engagement, in reality it was more interrogation. Once I made the order she quickly lost interest to my humble person and joined the loud speaking group of Polish diners.
