I expected to wake to the sound of rain tapping against our hotel window. Or, to the sight of fog drifting through the streets below. We were, after all, in London. I hadn’t even entertained the possibility of bright blue skies and temps in the mid to upper perfect range. But I’d take it.

We were at Paddington Station early, but only after a traditional English breakfast at St. David’s. Eggs sunny side up, English bacon, sausage, the whole nine yards…all with a spot of tea.

The train pulled out of London and we were soon speeding through southern portions of the Cotswolds, the most ridiculously charming piece of countryside in England…maybe anywhere. I struggle to describe just how quaint, how picturesque this place is. Deep green pastures divided by ancient hedgerows roll gently from one horizon to the other. Happy little sheep and ponies graze next to ageless rock walls and medieval stone cottages. It really is the prototypical storybook backdrop.



The Cotswolds

We de-trained in Bath, and dragged our luggage off the platform and up Manvers Street towards the bus depot. We had been told that we could rent a locker there, and I was looking forward to dumping our stuff for awhile and having a look around while the day was still young.

The place was chaos, though. Tourists of every persuasion crowded the sidewalks and spilled onto the streets. It was impossible to walk more than a few steps without being jostled or bumped. Shauna had her bags knocked out of her hands a couple times before finally reaching the bus terminal. I was starting to get a little testy for her.

We waited in line for nearly a half hour only to learn that they didn’t really rent lockers. We were told to try the youth hostel about a half mile up the street. It was then that we elected to take the road less traveled by…and it made all the difference.

Instead of marching uphill to the hostel through a sea of humanity, with all our things in tow, where they may or may not even rent lockers, we hauled ourselves and our bags back to the train station, hopped in a cab, and got the hell out of Dodge. I was a little bummed to leave without exploring the place, but, we didn’t cross the bloody Atlantic to spend what little time we had there fighting the weekend hordes. We had places to go, things to see, people to bug with our ugly Americanism.

The driver dropped us off at the Eurocar office in Marksbury, a little town about 10 minutes southwest of Bath. We had a reservation, but we were early, and our car wasn’t ready yet. I passed the time by franticly trying to cram the entire contents of a little book about driving in the UK into my memory. All the good it did!

We reserved an economy class car, so I was expecting a Geo Metro, or a Ford Festiva, or some European variant thereof.




Needless to say I was jazzed when they pulled this little number out of the garage…a Vauxhall Astra, complete with a turbocharged 1.8 liter 4-banger and race tuned suspension.

“HOT DAMN” was all I could say as I gassed it onto the A39 out of town. As they say in the biz…that little car hauled ass!