5 hour layover in Heathrow

This past March I had 6 hours at Heathrow. I know London so I raced into town on the Heathrow Express, and then the tube to Piccadilly. Then walked and took photos with my new camera from Piccadilly to the Houses of Parliament, then raced back. I only had two hours in London itself in order to get back to the airport, go through security and to the right terminal.

5 hours is barely enough time to do all that, especially if you don't know your way around. But if you try, it'll give you something to do. With a 5 hour lay-over, I'd say you would get one to two hours in London itself.

Assuming you land on time, you have just enough time for a quick visit to Windsor Castle. Windsor borders the airport and can be reached very quickly via taxi.

Heathrow is a crapshoot. If your plane lands on time and at the terminal (they don't always, sometimes you have to be taxied to the terminal by bus), if there isn't a long line at immigration (there usually is), and if the sun, moon and stars align perfectly, 5 hours may be just enough time to pay a lightning quick visit to central London. But don't count on it.

Heathrow is a VERY large airport with lots of shopping, resturants and lounges. Re-checking and going through security is risky with your timeline. Sometimes when we have flown out of Heathrow, we had to wait in Check in and Security lines for extreamly long times (more than 30-45 min each). If everything works out (on line landing, short lines at immigration) I agree that Windsor is your best bet.

We did a quick private Windsor "layover tour" in our 5 hour layover. We had a driver, a tour guide and me with my four kids. It was great. They picked us up at the airport and dropped us off with plenty of time for our flight.