Burford
 

Am thinking of staying in Burford for 3 days as a base to explore the Cotswolds. Is is possible to hire a car there and take a train/bus from London? With two days to explore what would you not miss. Love antiques and shopping.

Take the train or bus from London to Oxford, rent a car there and then travel out to Burford . . . .

I very much doubt there's a car rental place in Burford. Is it the London traffic you're trying to avoid by not renting in London and driving from there? You might want to try Oxford or Bath or even someplace in the western suburbs of London for your car rental.

I have not enjoyed car rental in Bath or even a car return to Bath. As far as I know, the rental places are in a large industrial park a good way from the city center. We had to take a taxi there to pick up a car (which was not available at the reserved time) and we had to wait a very long time for a taxi to take us back to Bath after once returning a car. Try Oxford; it's got to be better than Bath.

tuscanlifeedit has it right. Bath is a difficult town to drive in and not a good place to pick up a car. Oxford is better, but only a bit better. If you don't want to rent in Oxford you have a couple of other options:

If you are leaving London on a weekend, you could actually pick up the car in London and drive all the way. I wouldn't recommend this on a weekday though.

Or, you could take public transport to LHR and pick up the car there.

But for Burford and visiting the cotswolds, you can take the Oxford Tube (inter-city London/Oxford bus) or the train from Paddington and drive from Oxford.

There's no conventional car hire business within 15 miles of Burford. But if picking up a car there really matters to you, just get the company to deliver: I've certainly had Enterprise deliver to the area from their Banbury depot.

In practice, though, given the difficulty of getting to Burford by public transport, it'd be a great deal easier to hire from Heathrow or Oxford.

If your idea of a good time is shopping and buying antiques, why on earth are you going to the Cotswolds? London's infintely better on both counts.

Ignore UreOseptic, passinthrough. He makes a regular habit of criticising the very area in which he lives. I'm beginning to think he wants to keep foreigners out.

In any case, the Cotswolds has some very nice shopping and antiquing. One town in particular is known for its antiques shops, but I forget which one. If UreO truly wants to be helpful, he'll tell us which one(s).

Cimbrone
(formerly Guy18)

I make a habit of telling the truth. I also make a habit of rarely shopping for anything, except the immediate necessities of life, in the Cotswolds.

There's no town in the Cotswolds "known for its antiques shops" - at least not to the people who live in the area.
And there are more antiques shops in any randomly-chosen London antiques mall (Camden Passage, for example) than in the whole of the Cotswolds.

There ARE towns known for the quality of their churches, for the loveliness of their setting or for the fascination of their townscapes. There's an infinity of glorious walking on pretty rights ofway across other people's land. There are a few world-class gardens, and if you get your timing right, an extraordinary range of more intimate gardens occasionally on view.

But shopping is something best done somewhere else. Actually, Cheltenham shopping's OK: but driving into it is a serious urban downer, and a distraction from the serious business of pottering around the region's rural prettiness.

Great information from all. I will take JanisJ's advice and rent in Oxford. What would be the most centrally located place for a base in the area in your humble opinions! I really want a restful spot and read last night that Burford was a bit close to the highway???? I do love gardens and although it will be late September I am hoping to tour a few and then just have fun poking about.

If you still want to go antiques shopping in the Cotwsolds, then check this site:

http://www.cotswolds-antiques-art.com/about.htm

It offers a good guide to individual dealers and their specialties. Although they are spread out, there seems to be a good clump of them in Stow-on-the-Wold.

Stow-on-the Wold has a fair few antique shops.

However, around 20 minutes from Burford along the delightful B4425 which passes through Bibury, you come to Cirencester which also has several antique shops, and a fascinating antiques market. This is in the market place, looks like a coffee shop from the front, but inside is an Aladdin's Cave of many individual stalls and lots of unusual stuff from wooden spoons to Wedgewood, clocks to commodes, etc.

From Cirencester it is an easy drive, again around 20 minutes, to Tetbury which is stuffed with antique shops. I would have thought Tetbury has more antique shops per square mile than anywhere else!

And you can hire a car from Brize Norton, which is barely 4 miles from Burford.

http://www.practical.co.uk/locations...ton/rental.asp

Good luck and have a great trip.

I believe Avis has a rental place on Abbey Road very near the train station.
Oxford would be a good place to pick-up a car.

As far as a place o stay in the Cotswold's and following your interests, Burford would do nicely. It's one of my favorites. Don't let the idea of a highway nearby influence you. It's not a problem.

Burford "too close to the highway"??

I wonder where you read that. Silly info IMHO. Burford is a wonderfull base. Yes, the A40 goes past Burford - but not through the village or down the main street. It is on the outskirts of the village and doesn't affect the B&Bs/hotels at all. Anyway, being convenient to the A40 is a plus since it is the main east/west route and will let you get to other areas easily.

Burford is a busy village - but that is a good thing since there are several good B&Bs, hotels, shops, pubs, tea room, restaurant, a great church, the river windrush.

Stow on the Wold is a good base too - a bit bigger than Burford, w/ a supermarket and also on a main road (the A429 is the main north/south route through tahe part of the Cotswolds)

I personally would stay in Burford before Stow - but both are fine. The town famous for antiques Guy18 mentions is probably Broadway. But it has mostly very high end stuff. There are antique shops in just about all of the larger villages.

Tetbury is the one I was thinking of, but I'm glad to know there are others. It may well be that London is cheaper/better/whatever for antiques, but I don't think that, unless passinthrough is a dealer, those are the only important factors in antiquing. A quaint shop in a village setting can be a pleasure in itself, whether something is purchased or not. Otherwise, we could all just antique on-line and never bother to get on the plane.

There is one hotel right on the A40 at the top of Burford, and as I cannot remember what it is called now I googled Burford Hotels and got this website

http://www.activereservations.com/ho...d=PPCGO1g566en

It's the Burford Lodge that is on the main road.

But there are all sorts of nice places down in the village itself. High Street and Sheep Street are in the center and there are several to choose from

http://www.burford-house.co.uk/
http://www.the-cotswolds.com/baytree.html
http://www.westview-house.co.uk/

are all nice places but there are others too

We based in Broadway. Burford is also a great place for basing. Two days is not very long--is that two days, or two nights?

You can read my trip report from May 2005 and see photos of some of the Cotswold towns at my website:
http://www.travelswithdiane.homestea...Cotswolds.html

Have a great time.

A few suggestions for lodging in Burford.

The Bay Tree is probably the nicest

Lamb Inn

Burford House (no restaurant)

Golden Pheasant

Just went to janisj's websites. No bad choices. All look wondeful. Just a matter of budget. I remember there being some nice B&B's but have no information on them.

Julia T got in before me with her suggestions of Cirencester and Tetbury. THere is a hotel in Tetbury called the Close where my parents used to treat me to lunch on our way to uni at the beginning of term; it is a very pretty market town. Cirencester is rather larger, but still a good base. If you've got the time and the inclination, you might fit in a trip to Westonburt Arboretum [slightly further south down the Fosse way, which is the old Roman road from Bath to Leicester] which is very beautiful at any time of year.
At the other end of the Cotswold, moreton in March is also very interesting with loads of antique shops.