Cotswold Capers - The Journey

London to Kidlington, England

London Eye

In October last year, my husband and I whizzed off on a much needed vacation to London. Since we were going to be spending eight days there, getting a whiff of country air seemed a great idea too. After tossing around options from the Lake District to Cornwall to as far as Scotland (neither of which would have made any sense given we had only two nights to spare), a friend suggested the Cotswolds. And what a great suggestion that was.

The Cotswolds is an area of rolling hills and pretty countryside with villages made of limestone cottages in the southern central part of England. The area comprises the counties of Oxfordshire, Gloustershire and parts of others such as Wiltshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Somerset (all this info courtesy Wikipedia).

Almost Over!

We figured the best way we'd get to explore the region was by car. So we got on to Cartrawler and booked one. Thought we got a good deal at 95 pounds for two nights for an Opel Astra sized vehicle, given it was a last minute booking. Got to Europcar at Victoria Station at 3 p.m. and were told we needed to furnish an international drivers license. The fellow behind the counter insisted that he couldn't give us the car without the international license as it was some insurer stipulation. Being us, we arrived on the dot to collect the car, never realizing there could be a problem so to maybe make it to the rental office a wee bit earlier. When we called the website they said that they couldn't do anything about the refund at that moment because it was already past the allotted pickup time.

So here we are with our Cotswolds trip dissipating before our eyes, about 10,000 rupees down the drain and quite dejected, when we approach the Budget rental right next door. Thank God for Budget! We got a car, at the Nth hour, a teeny two door Nissan Micra for 190 pounds with a full tank of gas. Though I thought that was a s***load of money to pay for two days, it was well worth not destroying our holiday. A word of advice, don't take the full tank of gas from the rental for a two day trip. We ended up returning the car with almost half tank unconsumed. After getting the keys, the three of us...a friend who lives in London joined us on this trip..piled into the car and made our way into the London streets.

Round and Round the Garden

Now London roads can be quite tricky to maneuver. Not the actual driving part, which is quite slow and a cakewalk for anyone used to driving in India where cars come at you from all directions and you have to be on hyper-alert at all times, but the narrow lanes, sharp zig zag cuts and general rules took a bit of time to master. The friend who suggested the Cotswolds had very kindly lent us his Garmin GPS device (God bless him), but my husband insisted we use Google Maps on our friend's iPhone (He has some weird fixation with Apple). After driving around in a loop at least three times and getting kind of lost, I put my foot down and snarled `it's going to be the Garmin and nothing else!' Thankfully he agreed otherwise we would still be going round and round the streets of London.

The drive along the A40 motorway was pleasant, and what made it better was that we were going against traffic. Being a Sunday, we had clear roads while the lane leading in to London was jammed for at least two to three kilometers and we're saying to ourselves ``we got so lucky! Look at those poor suckers'. It took us about two hours to reach our hotel.

Destination Nowhere

The Garmin (our best friend) was spot on and precise, right up to the point we got to our final destination. We had reservations at Sturdy's Castle in Kidlington, a few miles from Oxford and since it had already become dark, we couldn't really make out our surroundings. Driving down a deserted country road, we were told our destination was 500 meters ahead. Destination approaching.. approaching.. approaching....huh? Nothing. Staring at the Garmin, I see us going over the destination marker. Meanwhile our GPS friend is squawking ``you have reached your destination, you have reached your destination. Then...``you have overshot your destination..turn around..turn around. We turn back. Still nothing. Deserted road, darkness. Turned around again and took a right turn. Still nothing. Come back to the spot indicated and go ahead a bit. See a gate with wild brush beyond, dark and creepy.. reminded me of the horror movies bhoot bangla (haunted house) types! Noooo it seriously couldn't be this place. Any reputable establishment would have lights right? Finally we drove back a bit, stopped at a car dealer parking lot, fished out the number of the inn and called them. Found out that it was just about a mile ahead and all lit up.

Sturdy's, a motel like place in the middle of nowhere had very comfortable rooms and bathrooms, pretty decent size too and good rates. Our rooms were on the first floor so were quite silent and peaceful. The inn is well located between Oxford, Bicester (where you have designer store outlets at cut prices), Woodstock and other Cotswold villages and it;s about a 10 minute drive or so from Blenheim Palace, the home of Winston Churchill, a big tourist attraction. You definitely need to have a car to be staying here.

Sturdy's Castle (why didn't I think to get a better picture!)

After checking in we went to the dining room for dinner. A nice cozy place. Ordered liver pate and a baked camembert with pear and fig chutney which came with toasted slices of bread. Was yummy. So when the bread finished, we asked if we could get more. The waitress said sure. Went into the kitchen and out came a guy who wagged his rag at us and said that we needed to get to our mains as the wait staff had been working since six am and needed to get home. Wow. All we asked was for more bread! Kinda Oliver Twist like. Decided to leave it be and not make a scene.

Lemme Know What You Want, Will Make Sure I Don't Get It!

The waitress after asking how we would like our bread, toasted or otherwise and with us saying toasted, put down a platter of plain sliced bread. We just left it. After that, apart from our breakfasts, which were included in the room rate and was quite good, we didn't eat any of our meals there. The mains weren't exceptional enough for a repeat performance. The other staff were polite and I would consider staying there again for the rooms. The free WiFi was an added bonus which allowed the husband to bury his nose into his computer while my friend and I nattered away and planned our next two days.

P.s. Cartrawler, after a couple of months, refunded half the money.