Long lay-over in Heathrow

Windsor Castle, someone with more knowledge can tell you how to get there.

My son and I had a 4 hour layover in London ( in late December) and took the tube to Covent garden and China town. We stored our luggage at Heathrow-(not too much money), and had a great time having lunch in Chinatown, and hearing some Asian Christmas caroling on the street. Amazing time,memory. Came back in time for a short flight to Edinburgh. Easy.

I don't want to be a pessimist but I'm going later this week and saw an article on-line today about long customs waits at Heathrow today. I started a discussion in another thread about it. http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm/rurl/topic/84656/heathrow-customs-delays.html Just be sure you count for time to get through customs and security in your calculations. Good luck,
=Tod

If you can get through immigration and customs in good time you can take the Piccadilly tbe to Piccadilly Circus then see Chinatown, Trafalgar square, the mounted gurad at Horse Guards parade, big Ben and the outside of Westminster Abbey and the Thames. Just be sure you are back at Heathrow in good time, they suggest 3 hours- security lines can be long This evening's news stated that at present people were in line two hours to get through immigration to get into UK. A lot depends on how many planes arrive at the same time

I flew into Heathrow last week (from Portugal) and there was no delay at all through Immigration for either myself on a European passport or my friend on a US passport. That was Sunday afternoon.
Today I met a friend who flew back from Philly last Tuesday and said the queue was horrendous. So we conjecture that it may be worst early in the day when all the trans-Atlantic flights arrive.

The tube into central London will take 45min.- 1 hour. At least that getting back. You need at least 3 hours before flight time to allow for check-in and security. IF flight is on time AND if immigration is typical (about 45min-1 1/2 hours) and not long like predicted, you MIGHT have 2 hours in central London. Windsor is a 'safer' alternative. But you'd want to have a pre-booked car service, as cabs from the cab rank can be VERY VERY VERY expensive. It is about a 15 min. drive to Windsor. Don't think you'd have time to tour the castle, but you'd havce time to see it from the outside and stroll around the town and get a bite to eat.
If you decide on Windsor, go to Trip Advisor's London or Windsor forums and look for LRWindsor (she uses a bust of Victoira as her avatar) and private message her.

Not done it myself, but a few stops up the Piccadilly line line is Osterley Park & House (http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/osterley-park/).

There are two public bus lines that go from Terminal 5 to Windsor and one that goes from Terminal 5 to Eton. For details, see this page on the London Toolkit site.