Notes on our UK driving vacation
Aug 7th, 2007, 06:47 PM
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Notes on our UK driving vacation
I met my 25 year old daughter in London after she had finished a seminar at Oxford, then spend two weeks traveling in the UK in late May and early June of last year (2006). This was my first trip outside the US. We spent four days in London, then rented a car and took a driving vacation that took us through England and into Wales and Scotland. For a daily pictorial review of our trip, go to
“community.webshots.com/user/cneukpix”. I know that some people would see this as too much driving and not enough sightseeing, but I enjoy the sights that I see while driving, particularly the rural countryside as it changes during a day’s drive.. The following are some thoughts on our trip that may be useful to others.
FLIGHT: I took an overnight flight to Heathrow from Chicago. I had tried to acclimate myself to the time change by gradually getting up earlier during the week before I left, but since I was not able to sleep more than a few hours in coach, I think that was a waste of time. I arrived around 8 a.m. London time and met my daughter. We took the express to Paddington station which was within four or five blocks of our hotel (Linden House), where we were able to check in early. We walked around Hyde Park and went to the London Museum that day, but by 5 p.m. I was feeling as if I was going to fall asleep standing up, so we went back to our hotel. I slept from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and did not suffer any further problems with jet lag.
ITINERARY:
5/28 to 5/31 London
6/1 London to Cheltenham (Stonehenge and Bath)
6/2 Cheltenham (Glouchester cathedral/Sudeley Castle)
6/3 Cheltenham to Corwin, Wales (roman ruins in Caerleon/Caephilly Castle)
6/4 Corwin to Ambleside in Lake District (Shrewsbury/Yorkshire Dales)
6/5 Ambleside to Edinburgh (Hadrian’s wall at Haltwhistle)
6/6 Edinburgh (Edinburg Castle, Holyroodhouse Palace)
6/7 Edinburgh to Loch Ness (Stirling Castle)
6/8 Loch Ness to Warkworth (Urquhart Castle)
6/9 Warkworth to Oakham (Alnwick Castle)
6/10 Oakham to Heathrow to catch our plane home
NOTES ON THE ITINERARY: Our route and stopping points just kind of evolved from the things that we each wanted to see while there and in an effort to see as much as possible. My daughter wanted to spend a day at Cheltenham because she had spent a semester at the University of Glouchester there. She also wanted to see Bath, the ruins at Caerleon, Shrewsbury Abbey, Yorkshire Dales, Hadrian’s wall, Edinburgh and Loch Ness. In planning our trip around those points, I found some of the castles we visited (Sudeley Castle, Stirling Castle, Uquhart Castle, Alnwick Castle) in doing internet research—mostly on this forum, I believe. I found that if you are planning to see several historic sites, you can buy a pass that will cover several of them at a reduced price. We bought an “Explorer’s Passport” at Edinburgh Castle that also got us into Stirling Castle and Urquhart Castle for less than what admission to two of them would have cost.
LONDON: I live in a rural area in the Midwest and generally do not like cities much, but I did like London. The Underground was easy to get around on and we also did a lot of walking. From our hotel near Paddington station we could easily walk to Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace. We enjoyed several London Walks, a boat trip down the Thames and a play at the Globe Theater (reserved ahead by internet) and visited the Tower of London, St. Paul’s, Westminster Abbey and Churchill’s WWII bunker. We had to cut our visit to the Tower short because we had afternoon tickets to the Globe—I would have been smarter to reserve an evening performance as most of the other sites closed at 5 p.m.
DRIVING: After four days in London we rented a car and spent the remainder of the two weeks driving, putting almost 2,000 miles on the car. I rented from 1car1 and picked up near Heathrow (to avoid driving within the City). The pickup and return on the car was quick and easy. I was apprehensive about driving in a foreign country on the “wrong” side of the road, but we had no major problems. I rented a car with an automatic transmission (what I use in the US) to avoid one more thing to figure out and I think it was worth the higher cost. Driving in the UK is different from the US, even aside from driving on the left side. Generally, UK drivers are very polite and forgiving—I was honked at only three or four times though I deserved it much more by American standards. The roundabouts took some getting use to, but really weren’t that intimidating. These seem to be at almost all intersections, even of large multi-lane roads. The idea is to stay on the outside if you are turning at the next turn, but more to the inside if you are going beyond. Cars in the roundabout have right away, so once you get in you don’t have to worry about someone jumping in and cutting you off. There may be four or five roads coming off of the roundabout and usually there are signs shortly before so you can figure out which road you will be taking. The signs are not always perfect—don’t always seem to clearly point out the road you want. You can, of course, go an around the roundabout if you aren’t sure which turn to take the first time around—I did this more than once. If you take the wrong road, you can use the next roundabout to make a u-turn and come back the way you came. When I got my car I was disappointed at first that it didn’t have cruise control, but I don’t know that I would have had much opportunity to use it. The roads in UK generally aren’t designed for constant speeds. They are narrow and winding and fairly heavily traveled. I can recall only one instance when I passed around another car going the same direction on a two-lane road. If you get off of the major “A” roads, the road can become so narrow that frequently two cars can’t pass, and there is usually not a continuous shoulder to allow you to make way—both sides of the road are bordered by stone fences. You must be constantly looking ahead as you enter a narrow area to be sure that there is no oncoming traffic. Because of all of these conditions, you aren’t going to travel as quickly as you would in the US. On my first day of driving, after leaving Stonehenge on the way to Bath, I decided that I would take a short-cut using my innate male sense of direction. Unfortunately, it wasn’t working in the UK. Roads aren’t set out on a grid there as they usually are here, so you can’t take a road headed west and expect to travel in that direction continuously. I had started the trip with a large “Ordnance Survey” map that shows the major roads, but doesn’t show all the roads. After becoming hopelessly lost in south Wales so that I didn’t know where I was or where I was headed, I stopped to fill up with petrol and purchased an “AA Big Easy Read Britain” atlas that shows ALL the roads. I didn’t get lost again (except in the cities) and was able to find some picturesque roads I had seen mentioned in this forum. The problem with finding my way in the cities was that I had few city maps and, when I did have some form of map, had a very difficult time finding street signs to compare the map to. Later in the trip I got better at finding street signs—I suspect I had just been looking in the wrong places. In the US, street signs are usually up high above the roadway—12 or 14 feet in the air. Street signs in the UK tended to be lower at the 4 to 6 foot height on walls or fences at intersections. One thing that caused me worry, but no real problems, were the speed cameras that were all over the country. There would be road signs alerting drivers to the presence of speed cameras but I was often not exactly sure what speed I was supposed to be going. I didn’t see a lot of speed limit signs—I guess you are just supposed to know what speed applies. According to my AA book, limits for cars were 30 mph in “built up areas”, 60 on “single carriageways” and 70 on “dual carriageways” and “motorways”. I was often not exactly sure if the area I was in was “built up” or not, so I generally just tried to follow the flow of traffic.
LODGING: My daughter would have been content to stay in hostels but I wanted something a bit nicer, but not expensive. We stayed in small bed and breakfast type hotels the entire trip and I can’t complain about any of them, though I don’t have very high standards. We generally paid about 65 to 70 pounds per night for a room with two beds and full English breakfast in the morning. Our hotel in London actually turned out to be the cheapest at about 63 pounds per night because we got a “four nights for the price of three” deal. I reserved all of the hotels ahead of my trip over the internet, most of them through Priceline. All of my rooms were there waiting for me, and everything was as advertised. These are the places we stayed:
Linden House London
Moorend Park Hotel Cheltenham
Bron-y-Graig Corwen, Wales
Cherry Garth Ambleside
Broughton Hotel Edinburgh
Foyers House Loch Ness
The Sun Hotel Warkworth
Whitwell Hotel Oakham
DINING: Breakfast was always included in each hotel and was always good. I was never quite sure what I was supposed to do with that contraption they serve the coffee in, but was able to get enough strong black coffee out of it to get me started in the morning. The British typically put milk in their coffee, I guess, so it is usually served quite strong. Lunches were hit and miss, especially while traveling. While traveling, we didn’t find quite the availability of easy fast-food stops that you find here and at times had a hard time finding a place to stop when lunch time rolled around. There are fast food places – the usual McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, etc—that you find here, but they aren’t as common as here (I’m not saying this is a bad thing). You just have to put more effort into finding a place. I recall driving around a village in Scotland where we did see some small restaurants, but could not find any place to park, and eventually gave up. We usually ended up eating our dinners (evening meal) in pubs. We found that pubs had hearty meals at reasonable (for the UK) prices. A few of the bed and breakfasts served dinner but the menus were usually too fancy and too expensive for our taste. When we stayed near Loch Ness, the bed and breakfast meals were very expensive so we drove into the village at the south end of the Loch (Fort Augustus) around 8 p.m. and found that all of the pubs had stopped serving food by that hour. Even the convenience store was closed so we couldn’t even pick up sandwiches.
NEXT TRIP: I thoroughly enjoyed this first trip as an introduction to much of Britain. If I were to go back, I think that I would stay in two or three areas and explore those by short car trips from a central location. Aside from London, I would probably center my explorations around York, north Wales or west Scotland. Those were areas I went through where I really wished I could have spent more time.
“community.webshots.com/user/cneukpix”. I know that some people would see this as too much driving and not enough sightseeing, but I enjoy the sights that I see while driving, particularly the rural countryside as it changes during a day’s drive.. The following are some thoughts on our trip that may be useful to others.
FLIGHT: I took an overnight flight to Heathrow from Chicago. I had tried to acclimate myself to the time change by gradually getting up earlier during the week before I left, but since I was not able to sleep more than a few hours in coach, I think that was a waste of time. I arrived around 8 a.m. London time and met my daughter. We took the express to Paddington station which was within four or five blocks of our hotel (Linden House), where we were able to check in early. We walked around Hyde Park and went to the London Museum that day, but by 5 p.m. I was feeling as if I was going to fall asleep standing up, so we went back to our hotel. I slept from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and did not suffer any further problems with jet lag.
ITINERARY:
5/28 to 5/31 London
6/1 London to Cheltenham (Stonehenge and Bath)
6/2 Cheltenham (Glouchester cathedral/Sudeley Castle)
6/3 Cheltenham to Corwin, Wales (roman ruins in Caerleon/Caephilly Castle)
6/4 Corwin to Ambleside in Lake District (Shrewsbury/Yorkshire Dales)
6/5 Ambleside to Edinburgh (Hadrian’s wall at Haltwhistle)
6/6 Edinburgh (Edinburg Castle, Holyroodhouse Palace)
6/7 Edinburgh to Loch Ness (Stirling Castle)
6/8 Loch Ness to Warkworth (Urquhart Castle)
6/9 Warkworth to Oakham (Alnwick Castle)
6/10 Oakham to Heathrow to catch our plane home
NOTES ON THE ITINERARY: Our route and stopping points just kind of evolved from the things that we each wanted to see while there and in an effort to see as much as possible. My daughter wanted to spend a day at Cheltenham because she had spent a semester at the University of Glouchester there. She also wanted to see Bath, the ruins at Caerleon, Shrewsbury Abbey, Yorkshire Dales, Hadrian’s wall, Edinburgh and Loch Ness. In planning our trip around those points, I found some of the castles we visited (Sudeley Castle, Stirling Castle, Uquhart Castle, Alnwick Castle) in doing internet research—mostly on this forum, I believe. I found that if you are planning to see several historic sites, you can buy a pass that will cover several of them at a reduced price. We bought an “Explorer’s Passport” at Edinburgh Castle that also got us into Stirling Castle and Urquhart Castle for less than what admission to two of them would have cost.
LONDON: I live in a rural area in the Midwest and generally do not like cities much, but I did like London. The Underground was easy to get around on and we also did a lot of walking. From our hotel near Paddington station we could easily walk to Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace. We enjoyed several London Walks, a boat trip down the Thames and a play at the Globe Theater (reserved ahead by internet) and visited the Tower of London, St. Paul’s, Westminster Abbey and Churchill’s WWII bunker. We had to cut our visit to the Tower short because we had afternoon tickets to the Globe—I would have been smarter to reserve an evening performance as most of the other sites closed at 5 p.m.
DRIVING: After four days in London we rented a car and spent the remainder of the two weeks driving, putting almost 2,000 miles on the car. I rented from 1car1 and picked up near Heathrow (to avoid driving within the City). The pickup and return on the car was quick and easy. I was apprehensive about driving in a foreign country on the “wrong” side of the road, but we had no major problems. I rented a car with an automatic transmission (what I use in the US) to avoid one more thing to figure out and I think it was worth the higher cost. Driving in the UK is different from the US, even aside from driving on the left side. Generally, UK drivers are very polite and forgiving—I was honked at only three or four times though I deserved it much more by American standards. The roundabouts took some getting use to, but really weren’t that intimidating. These seem to be at almost all intersections, even of large multi-lane roads. The idea is to stay on the outside if you are turning at the next turn, but more to the inside if you are going beyond. Cars in the roundabout have right away, so once you get in you don’t have to worry about someone jumping in and cutting you off. There may be four or five roads coming off of the roundabout and usually there are signs shortly before so you can figure out which road you will be taking. The signs are not always perfect—don’t always seem to clearly point out the road you want. You can, of course, go an around the roundabout if you aren’t sure which turn to take the first time around—I did this more than once. If you take the wrong road, you can use the next roundabout to make a u-turn and come back the way you came. When I got my car I was disappointed at first that it didn’t have cruise control, but I don’t know that I would have had much opportunity to use it. The roads in UK generally aren’t designed for constant speeds. They are narrow and winding and fairly heavily traveled. I can recall only one instance when I passed around another car going the same direction on a two-lane road. If you get off of the major “A” roads, the road can become so narrow that frequently two cars can’t pass, and there is usually not a continuous shoulder to allow you to make way—both sides of the road are bordered by stone fences. You must be constantly looking ahead as you enter a narrow area to be sure that there is no oncoming traffic. Because of all of these conditions, you aren’t going to travel as quickly as you would in the US. On my first day of driving, after leaving Stonehenge on the way to Bath, I decided that I would take a short-cut using my innate male sense of direction. Unfortunately, it wasn’t working in the UK. Roads aren’t set out on a grid there as they usually are here, so you can’t take a road headed west and expect to travel in that direction continuously. I had started the trip with a large “Ordnance Survey” map that shows the major roads, but doesn’t show all the roads. After becoming hopelessly lost in south Wales so that I didn’t know where I was or where I was headed, I stopped to fill up with petrol and purchased an “AA Big Easy Read Britain” atlas that shows ALL the roads. I didn’t get lost again (except in the cities) and was able to find some picturesque roads I had seen mentioned in this forum. The problem with finding my way in the cities was that I had few city maps and, when I did have some form of map, had a very difficult time finding street signs to compare the map to. Later in the trip I got better at finding street signs—I suspect I had just been looking in the wrong places. In the US, street signs are usually up high above the roadway—12 or 14 feet in the air. Street signs in the UK tended to be lower at the 4 to 6 foot height on walls or fences at intersections. One thing that caused me worry, but no real problems, were the speed cameras that were all over the country. There would be road signs alerting drivers to the presence of speed cameras but I was often not exactly sure what speed I was supposed to be going. I didn’t see a lot of speed limit signs—I guess you are just supposed to know what speed applies. According to my AA book, limits for cars were 30 mph in “built up areas”, 60 on “single carriageways” and 70 on “dual carriageways” and “motorways”. I was often not exactly sure if the area I was in was “built up” or not, so I generally just tried to follow the flow of traffic.
LODGING: My daughter would have been content to stay in hostels but I wanted something a bit nicer, but not expensive. We stayed in small bed and breakfast type hotels the entire trip and I can’t complain about any of them, though I don’t have very high standards. We generally paid about 65 to 70 pounds per night for a room with two beds and full English breakfast in the morning. Our hotel in London actually turned out to be the cheapest at about 63 pounds per night because we got a “four nights for the price of three” deal. I reserved all of the hotels ahead of my trip over the internet, most of them through Priceline. All of my rooms were there waiting for me, and everything was as advertised. These are the places we stayed:
Linden House London
Moorend Park Hotel Cheltenham
Bron-y-Graig Corwen, Wales
Cherry Garth Ambleside
Broughton Hotel Edinburgh
Foyers House Loch Ness
The Sun Hotel Warkworth
Whitwell Hotel Oakham
DINING: Breakfast was always included in each hotel and was always good. I was never quite sure what I was supposed to do with that contraption they serve the coffee in, but was able to get enough strong black coffee out of it to get me started in the morning. The British typically put milk in their coffee, I guess, so it is usually served quite strong. Lunches were hit and miss, especially while traveling. While traveling, we didn’t find quite the availability of easy fast-food stops that you find here and at times had a hard time finding a place to stop when lunch time rolled around. There are fast food places – the usual McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, etc—that you find here, but they aren’t as common as here (I’m not saying this is a bad thing). You just have to put more effort into finding a place. I recall driving around a village in Scotland where we did see some small restaurants, but could not find any place to park, and eventually gave up. We usually ended up eating our dinners (evening meal) in pubs. We found that pubs had hearty meals at reasonable (for the UK) prices. A few of the bed and breakfasts served dinner but the menus were usually too fancy and too expensive for our taste. When we stayed near Loch Ness, the bed and breakfast meals were very expensive so we drove into the village at the south end of the Loch (Fort Augustus) around 8 p.m. and found that all of the pubs had stopped serving food by that hour. Even the convenience store was closed so we couldn’t even pick up sandwiches.
NEXT TRIP: I thoroughly enjoyed this first trip as an introduction to much of Britain. If I were to go back, I think that I would stay in two or three areas and explore those by short car trips from a central location. Aside from London, I would probably center my explorations around York, north Wales or west Scotland. Those were areas I went through where I really wished I could have spent more time.
Aug 8th, 2007, 03:10 AM
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tiller3000 - Well done report. Loved your honesty, that contraption the coffee came in was a french press. We use one here at home in the midwest.
We have found it works well to have our main meal of the day in the UK around 1:30 or 2:00 pm and then we'll pick up a sandwich for the evening.
Interesting that you booked most of your small hotels from priceline. Next time you may want to look at some of the B&B sites, one we often use is www.smoothhound.co.uk or goggle B&B's in the area you will be in.
We will cross the pond again this October and will be spending time in York.
Will look at your pictures later today. Thanks again for sharing.
Sandy
We have found it works well to have our main meal of the day in the UK around 1:30 or 2:00 pm and then we'll pick up a sandwich for the evening.
Interesting that you booked most of your small hotels from priceline. Next time you may want to look at some of the B&B sites, one we often use is www.smoothhound.co.uk or goggle B&B's in the area you will be in.
We will cross the pond again this October and will be spending time in York.
Will look at your pictures later today. Thanks again for sharing.
Sandy
Aug 8th, 2007, 03:22 AM
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The coffee gadget was a cafetière.
In the UK "French press" might not be understood.
You just let the grounds settle for a bit, push down the plunger and Robert is your proverbial.
I have had various coffee-makers over the years including some weird and wonderful ones, but I have come to the conclusion that a cafetière makes the best coffee and it's really easy.
You do really need an electric kettle, though.
In the UK "French press" might not be understood.
You just let the grounds settle for a bit, push down the plunger and Robert is your proverbial.
I have had various coffee-makers over the years including some weird and wonderful ones, but I have come to the conclusion that a cafetière makes the best coffee and it's really easy.
You do really need an electric kettle, though.
Aug 8th, 2007, 07:45 AM
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Thanks for the report. You really covered a lot of ground (and saw a lot of castles!) on your "survey tour". I'm with you - North/West Scotland, area around York and North Wales are on my short list for a return visit to the UK.
I'm enjoying your photos - which was your favorite castle?
I'm enjoying your photos - which was your favorite castle?
Aug 8th, 2007, 07:48 AM
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You covered a lot of ground but it sounds like you really enjoyed it. Nice trip report, thanks.
One tip for visiting drivers - whenever you come off a roundabout (a real one not a little mini bump in the road one) there will be a speed sign just off the exit.
One tip for visiting drivers - whenever you come off a roundabout (a real one not a little mini bump in the road one) there will be a speed sign just off the exit.
Aug 9th, 2007, 06:30 AM
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I enjoyed your report. I especially was glad to hear that you liked London. It is one of my favorite cities, and I feel sad when I hear that posters were disappointed. (I do realize that we all have are own opinions.)
Just had a chance to look at your pictures and liked your organization of them. I liked seeing your B&Bs and some of the rooms.
Thanks for sharing.
Just had a chance to look at your pictures and liked your organization of them. I liked seeing your B&Bs and some of the rooms.
Thanks for sharing.
Aug 10th, 2007, 05:53 PM
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Thank you all for your comments, and the explanation of the "french press". I guess I was using correctly after all. I saw one for sale in the US for the first time two weeks ago at, of all places, the School of the Ozarks in Branson, Missouri. As for noe847's question about the favorite castle, that's tough. They are all different and I enjoyed them all. Edinburg castle had a lot to see and was closest to my surname's place of origin, so I could imagine my ancestors being there. Alnwick was interesting for its Harry Potter connections--I wish I'd had time to see the gardens. Caephilly Castle in Wales was impressive. Stirling Castle had a lot to see, and Urquhart was just ruins but had a beautiful location on the shore of Loch Ness. I mentioned using Priceline for hotels, but I believe I used tripadvisor alot too to locate places to stay. Two of the B&Bs had to be emailed directly to arrange lodging, and I think I found them on tripadvisor. I'm going to Ireland for a shorter visit this fall and am using it there.
