Four accommodations in England

Here are four accommodations from our trip to ENGLAND, May 7-21, 2007. Our room in each of these featured a color TV and coffee/tea-making facilities.

• Arriving at Heathrow after a short flight from Paris, we took a bus to Reading for £26 (about $52). From the rail station, we took a cab to our first hotel, Express by Holiday Inn (Richfield Ave., Reading, Berkshire RG1 8EQ, U.K.; phone 01189 582 558, fax 582 858 or e-mail ebhi-reading@btconnect.com).

We booked this hotel on the Web. For a twin-bedded room, the “Priority Club” rate (join for free on the Holiday Inn website, www.hiexpress.co.uk) was £76 ($151) including VAT and Continental breakfast.

It was like any Holiday Inn Express in the States. Very comfortable stay.

• Just across the parking lot was Toby Carvery (www.toby-carvery.co.uk), part of a chain, a typical English carvery with roast beef, ham, pork and turkey, where we had dinner. The Yorkshire puddings were huge and delicious with the meat and gravy. Dinner for two with a couple of drinks was £32 ($65) including tip.

• We stayed at The Fleece Hotel (Market Place Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 2NZ, U.K.; phone 01285 658 50 or fax 285 651 017, www.fleecehotel.co.uk), May 8-10.

In a very good location for touring the Cotswolds, the hotel was in a very old building dating from the 1600s. In 1651 King James hid in this building from the Roundheads.

Our twin-bedded room was small but comfortable, including bath with tub/shower. It cost £79 ($157) per night, including VAT and full English breakfast.

The staff was very accommodating. There was a restaurant plus a bar with meals.

• We stayed at Halfpenny Bridge Cottage, one of five cottages at Hill Farm Cottages (Weare Trees Hill, Great Torrington, North Devon EX38 7EZ, U.K; phone 01805 622 432, www.hillfarmcottages.co.uk).

Our cottage had one bedroom with twin beds and a crib plus a second bedroom with a queen-sized bed. For a week, May 11-18, we paid £385.50 ($767), including £10.50 ($21) for electricity.

The kitchen was fully equipped with pots, pans, dinnerware and flatware. It had a 4-burner electric stove, an oven, a refrigerator with freezer and a microwave oven.

The living room had DVD, CD and VHS players and an electric fire. There were electric radiators in all the rooms except the kitchen and bathroom. The bathroom had electric towel racks.

These are self-catering cottages and, as such, bath towels and facecloths were not included. Bath towels could be rented at extra cost.

Rates for the cottages ran £320-£705 ($637-$1,403) per week, depending on the cottage and time of year. Two of the cottages slept six, three slept four, and all could accommodate a crib. Take a look at their website to get a feel for the size of cottage you would like to rent.

Mrs. Vickery, the owner, provided maps and information about the area. The town of Torrington was about a mile away. It had a service station and a grocery store, Somerfield, plus several pubs, the Black Horse being our favorite.

• Finally, we stayed May 18-19 at Francoise and Ted Phillips’ Chelsea apartment (6 Tite St., London SW3 4HY, U.K.; phone 02073 767 646, fax 02073 763 747 or e-mail wonderfulchelsea@aol.com).

It was a 7-minute walk to King’s Road, where we could catch a bus, or a 15-minute walk to Sloane Square for the tube. A block away was the Tesco Express (a 7-11 type of store) for newspapers and groceries. On King’s Road was a Safeway and a Marks & Spencer.

The apartment was self-contained, with its own entrance. The bedroom had twin beds which could be converted to a king-sized bed, and the mattresses were firm.

The marble bathroom had a great shower. The living room had a sofa bed and a mini-kitchen for the preparation of light meals. There was a refrigerator, 2-burner stove, electric kettle and microwave. Crockery and linens all were provided.

A telephone was there for local use and incoming calls. Ted and Francoise can loan you a cellular phone for your stay, free. They also can supply an electric hair dryer.

The rate was $175 per night. There was a 4-night minimum. (Because we had stayed before, this was waived for us.)

This has to be one of the best bargains in London. Being able to have sandwich makings handy is great, for one gets tired of restaurants after a couple of weeks.

Ted Phillips provided transportation to Heathrow Airport for $100. This certainly beat dragging our bags on either buses or the underground.

We cannot recommend this apartment highly enough.

If anyone has questions about any of these places, feel free to contact me c/o ITN.

JERRY J. SMITH

Seattle, WA