Britain driving more difficult

What’s one thing we would do differently if we were to take our last trip over again? (See Oct. ’08, pg. 2.) After our experience in late April and early May ’08, we would not drive ourselves in England again.

Previously, we had driven all over Great Britain, South Africa and New Zealand, so we have experience with driving on the “other” side of the road. However, on this trip the traffic overwhelmed their roads, from the country lanes to the motorways.

Also, even with our detailed maps, we often found ourselves on the wrong road. We were at fault sometimes, but many times the signs were not there. A friendly young man told us, “But the locals know.”

We were probably closer to the large population centers on this trip, since we started in Manchester and made a circular trip around the center and south of the country, avoiding London. The idea was to see places not visited on previous trips when we drove the Cotswolds, the Lake District, Cornwall and Devon; in those places, as well as in Scotland and Wales, there was not much traffic.

Now the good news — we are fans of Rick Steves’ travel guides and this time found his “England 2008” book to be very helpful. We even bought the suggested British Heritage Pass. While it cost about $150 per person, it saved us money in the long run and encouraged us to see many sights.

We used some of Steves’ ideas for B&Bs and were pleased with the locations of these in the cathedral cities of Durham, York and Canterbury. We averaged $140 per night for two in the B&Bs, some of which had websites.

Pub dinners cost about $40 for two. Petrol was $10 per gallon.

A few of our favorite places were Chartwell; the country home of Sir Winston Churchill, and the D-Day Museum at Portsmouth. We were able to see Osbourne House (a home to Queen Victoria) on the Isle of Wight by using a ferry from Portsmouth and local buses on a day trip.

We enjoyed good weather and found the English people to be very friendly, helpful and humorous.

Fortunately, we’ve now driven pretty much all of Enland. On a tour, we never could have seen all the places we wanted to see, and a private tour with car and driver would have cost far more. We are glad we did this last trip, and we’ll return to London again and Hampton Court, just taking public transportation, but never again will we drive there.

BARBARA McINTOSH

Roseville, CA