Bellibop

I am traveling to Northampton, England in August to go to Althorpe, Princess Diana's childhood home. I will be staying in London for a few days before that but want to spend about a week in the English countryside somewhere. The areas somewhat near Althorpe are Leicester, Coventry, Cambridge, Oxford and Birmingham. These are posted on Althorpe's website.

I need suggestions about which of these or other English countryside areas that would work for a week of relaxation, being able to walk, shops, restaurants, etc. I don't want to feel like a big city like London for this week. Also, any suggestion about accommodations in the suggested area.

Thanks as always,
Bellibop

Morgana

Assume you will have a car to get about? If you are relying on public transport to 'countryside areas' it will need careful planning.

thursdaysd

I spent time in Oxford and Cambridge last year without public transport. From Cambridge I visited Ely, and you could easily visit King's Lynn and Sandringham as well. Nowhere else in the UK is close to size of London, but Oxford and Cambridge are fair-sized towns. (Click on my name for my UK TR.)

sparkchaser

<i>If you are relying on public transport to 'countryside areas' it will need careful planning</i>

"careful" is a very diplomatic way of saying it.

Morgana

Yes, I tried to be diplomatic. Our rural bus services are being cut in all the while where I live in North Yorkshire, and this is happening all over the country.
Easy enough to get to places like Oxford, Cambridge, Ely etc as mentioned above but the poster has specified the countryside!

annhig

if you stay in a city you won't get the countryside experience you crave; if you stay in the countryside you'll need a car.

Having been brought up there I have a fondness for the Warwickshire countryside; Royal Leamington Spa might be a good base - reasonably easy to get to and from but big enough to have a bit of life about it [though my glasses may be a little rose coloured, I accept]; Warwick is also nice and though it's the county town it is just that - a town.

janisj

If you will have a car -- I'd stay in the northern Cotswolds. That would be a good base for lovely countryside, pretty villages, gardens, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick, Coventry, etc etc etc.

If you won't have a car - maybe in Oxford.

Gardyloo

I am very fond of East Anglia, which tends to be less popular with tourists compared to the Cotswolds. One can spend a wonderful week touring Cambridge and Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk. There are many historic and picturesque villages, a good selection of landscapes - rolling hills to coastline, and Cambridge itself is splendid.

janisj

East Anglia definitely has some lovely bits. One issue is getting from say Suffolk to Althorpe . . . about 100 miles vs. less than 50, which is why I suggested more over on the west side.

But another really good option would be around Rutland Water/Stamford, even closer than the northern Cotswolds. A good base for visiting Stamford and its Shakespeare theatre, nice villages, Burghley House etc etc.

flanneruk

It's close to impossible to use public transport to visit Althorp and stay in the area.

The house is a shortish (though pushing £20 each way) taxi ride from Northampton railway station, which has trains every few minutes to London and Birmingham. But Northampton itself has little for visitors, and there are practically no public transport links to anywhere off the London-Birmingham railway line.

The area round Northampton has lots of nice villages, and looks sort of central. In practice, though, eastbound road links are sparse and congested: most westbound links just congested. It's about an hour's drive to the handiest Oxford Park & Ride (don't even think of driving in): at least 50% longer to Cambridge, and a significant part of most people's lifetime to anywhere else east of Cambridge worth visiting.

Of the neighbours Althorp appears to boast, it's hard to see any reason for visiting Coventry or Leicester - though Leicester's National Space Centre has fascinating road signs pointing to it, and Coventry's mid-20th century cathedral embodies how awful British architecture was back then. Its one redeeming feature is that everything around it is many times horrider.

All of which said, some of the modest pleasures slightly east (and accessible relatively quickly) almost match the better known stuff in Oxford, Stratford and the North Cotswolds. Peterborough's no great shakes, but its cathedral's sublime: Stamford's lovely, as is its surrounding countryside towards Melton Mowbray and Oundle.

There's a lot of small cottages for weekly rent in the Cotswolds. Rents are a lot lower (often for bigger and better-equipped places) east of Banbury: just google, with appropriate caution.

isabel

The suggestion of Royal Leamington Spa is a good one. My daughter lived there for a year and I visited. Lots of places you can get to by public transportation that feel very rural. Cambridge and Oxford, while 'cities' have lots of rural parts, easily walked from the centers. From a base in Leamington you could visit Warwick Castle, Kenliworth, Cambridge and Oxford.

Here are some photos of some of the rural bits of the places I mentioned:
http://www.pbase.com/annforcier/image/146838441
http://www.pbase.com/annforcier/image/146838340
http://www.pbase.com/annforcier/image/146838469
http://www.pbase.com/annforcier/image/146838843
http://www.pbase.com/annforcier/image/146838802

crellston

If you are happy renting and driving a car, get the train from Euston to Northampton (1 hour) rent a car from one of the many places close to the station and drive to Althorp 20-30mins.

http://www.thesaracensatbrington.co.uk about two miles from Althorp House serves great food and beer.

Drive to Winchcombe (1.5 hours) We recently rented a cottage in Sudely Castle,
https://www.sudeleycastle.co.uk/cottages/ Really enjoyed it and you get free unlimited access to the castle saving £14 per person per visit. It was once home to queen Katharine Parr, wife of Henry V111 . Winchcombe is at the junction of a number of foot paths on the Cotswolds Way so there are plenty of great walks right from the property. Some great eating places in the small town including traditional pubs and one Michelin starred place.

The regency town of Cheltenham is close by, about 10 miles.

sparkchaser

My advice when it comes to renting a car:

1. Unless you are comfortable with shifting with your left hand, get an automatic. Yes, it will cost more but at least you won't have to worry about shifting while trying to find your opening to take the third exit on the roundabout.

2. Get the smallest car you can get. The rural roads can be quite narrow and harrowing and the narrower your car, the better.

Bellibop

Thank you all very much. My husband is not comfortable driving in Europe generally due to language and signs, but I think he would be in England. We would definitely get an automatic car and a small one as you suggest. I am going to research all of the towns now that you have suggested and pick from that list.

Thank you all so much!
Pamela

flanneruk

There are some excellent ideas here.

But do realise how slow cross-country driving is in this part of the world. From Northampton to Winchcombe, for instance, is at least an hour and three-quarters if traffic's OK. Which it often isn't.

Incidentally, I wouldn't obsess about hiring an automatic these days. A small modern non-automatic car (say with a 1 litre engine) will have huge tolerance for the "wrong" gear. You just don't need to change gears much any more in the kind of situation sparkchaser describes.

A decade or four ago, the problem used to be serious, and much of my car hire experience in Continental Europe involved traumatic attempts to change gear entering Italian autostrade. I swear I'm still psychologically damaged - but it just doesn't matter any more.

The point matters because few people shell out for automatics, so you can't always be sure the depot will have one, even if you've prebooked.

It DOES matter more, though, to make sure - especially in the Cotswolds - that you've got the smallest possible car

janisj

I am totally (<B>100%</B useless w/ my left hand -- not ambidextrous at all. And yet I have no problem at all driving a stick in the UK. None whatsoever.

My guess (just a guess) is that most people who say you must rent an automatic . . . just can't imagine shifting left handed. You ain't street racing or pulling someone off the line after all. You are simply shifting up and down the gears.

If one is not totally comfortable driving a stick at home -- then sure, rent an automatic. But if you are competent shifting at home you can do it on the other side of the car/road . . . IF you want to save hundreds of $$$

isplumm1

Hi

As someone who regularly hires cars in France, but lives in the UK I find it very easy to drive a car where the gears are on my right (ie. opposite side to normal), so I don't see why someone who is used to driving a gear car in the US couldn't do the same in the UK.

Mark

annhig

same here, Mark. IME It usually only takes an hour or so to adjust, in fact it's easier in some ways than driving one's own car in France because then you are on the "wrong" side of the road and the steering wheel is in the wrong place so it's very easy to set off on the left and only realise one's error when you see the horrified look on the face of the driver coming towards you.

When our kids were younger and we travelled "sur le continent" in our own car, they would start every journey with a rendition of "always drive on the right side of the road" alla Monty Python's Life of Brian; I still think of it when we set off every morning even though they are no longer in the back to sing it.

bilboburgler

I'd look at Rutland (it is a county even if a small one) with a car you can stay in some of the small towns like Stamford (just over the border in Lincolnshire) or better Oakham, with a fair selection of restaurants, a few B&Bs and small hotels, a lively farmers (as you might say) market, ancient castle (so old the stones have all gone) plus bits of old wall. Finally you have some great walks around the water.

one of the pleasures of UK country is to get hold of the local ordnance survey map and follow the various public footpaths that are marked. Suddenly coming across a deer or watching a kingfisher (bright electric blue) feeding can make a day.

http://www.discover-rutland.co.uk/

Public transport planning, use this website http://www.traveline.info/