Oxfordshire and the Cotswolds

A few months back I realised how rarely I travel in a motor car in London. Living in the West End, I rarely even need to use the tube. The tube is very convenient for travelling long distances, but a waste of time for short trips. London may be a huge city, but, unless you're the Queen or Madonna, you come to accept that walking is the most efficient mode of transport.

All of my London car trips have been in taxis, and usually in the wee (and not so wee) hours of the morning. Still, I've discovered how exciting London can be, when viewed from a black cab at flat-pedalled speed. It's easy to feel like the sovereign at times like this. Perhaps it's the sensation of exclusivity in a city that thrives on public transport.

The lure of viewing England from the driver's seat, coupled with my desire to travel once a month, and coming off the back of a festive season that hit my wallet and sanity, I decided to travel to Oxfordshire and the Cotswolds on the weekend of 11/12 February. But first, I needed a car. The nearest Hertz is in Russell Square, about 10 minutes walk from my flat. My journey began on Saturday morning in a tiny Ford Festive, hired for the princely sum of £31 per day, inclusive of corporate discount.

I am a little scared of London drivers, and with good reason, but it was pretty painless once on the road. The first thing I noticed is how easy it is to get out of London. My Google Maps instructions said to drive north from Russell Square, and turn left at Euston Road. This is the only turn I needed to make to travel 50 miles to Oxford ring road! The major arterials in and out of London follow ancient paths meaning that they're straight, and easy to follow. Either that, or (more likely) the town planners had a lot of fun laying out a city that's easier to get out of, than across.

Of course, while that might have been the only turn I had to make, I did get lost, once. I blame the road engineers. Where four roads meet anywhere else in the world, the engineers install a set of traffic lights. In England, they put in a three lane roundabout... with traffic lights at every on-ramp... and umpteen exits. It's confusing, and scary.

Road madness aside, my trip was also broken by a short detour. Wallingford is a small town about 15 miles shy of Oxford. While the town has considerable historical significance, the purpose of my visit was a pilgrimage of sorts, as Wallingford is where Agatha Christie lived in the latter years of her life. She lived at Winterbrook House with her second husband, Max Mallowan, who was famous in his own right as an archaeologist. Winterbrook is said to be the inspiration for Miss Marple's fictional home of Danemead. Wallingford also turns up in the Marple books as the town of Market Basing. A few miles to the south is the village of Cholsey, where Christie was buried in the beautiful churchyard of St Mary's.

I headed north from Cholsey to Blenheim Palace (just past Oxford). Blenheim is the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough, and home to the Spencer-Churchill family. John Churchill, the first duke, commanded the English army in the War of Spanish Succession, against the French. Queen Anne ordered the construction of Blenheim Palace as a gift from a grateful nation. Despite this royal decree, the construction of Blenheim Palace was not without controversy. This is English tradition continues to this day; Wembley Stadium being a contemporary example. The exact cost is unknown, the estimates shrouded by construction delays and fights over who would pay. What is known is that the public purse contributed £240,000 to a total cost not less than £325,000, which in today's money is £45 million. Walking around the grounds, one can't help but think that this is a good investment. I'd like to see what Aaron Spelling's house looks like in 300 years.

Blenheim is jaw-droppingly impressive. The tour includes the formal areas inside the palace, and (paying) visitors are free to walk the grounds. The sheer scale of the palace is hard to grasp, let alone the idea that it was, and still is (in part), a family home. If Blenheim looks familiar, you'll have seen it in countless films and television productions. It turns up as the home of evil August de Wynter (Sean Connery) in The Avengers, doubles as Berlin for a Nazi rally in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and features prominently in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes.

According to the palace's tour guide, Hitler intended to "come and live here". I'm not sure if that meant the palace itself, or just Oxford, as I later discovered that the city was spared German bombing because Hitler intended it to become his English capital. Once I checked into the Oxford guest house where I stayed the night, I sincerely wished Hitler had chosen York or anywhere else for that matter, and razed Oxford. The scary room wasn't dirty, thankfully, but it was very, very old. Right down to the 70s line drawing, of a pouting hippy, on the wall.

In fairness, it's hard to describe any part of Oxford without using "old" in the description. Magdalen School was built in 1400-something. I stopped for a coffee at the Queen's Lane Coffee House, which is Oxford's oldest operating cafe. It opened in 1650-something. Roaming the little streets around the coffee shop, I saw Magdalen College, New College, Corpus Christi College, and the beautiful Radcliffe Camera. Unfortunately, Oxford's pleasant atmosphere doesn't extend far beyond the boundaries of its famous colleges. The central shopping mall, running off the high street, is crass and commercial, and "Anywhere, England". One of Wallingford's charms was the strict town planning rules governing signage, forcing chain stores like Pizza Express to blend into the rural streetscape. This was sorely missing in Oxford.

But the most annoying thing about Oxford is that the entire city is a car-free zone. Residents are allowed to get parking permits, but everyone else has to park on the outskirts of town and get a bus in. This is sensible given that narrow mediaeval lanes are now expected to carry two-way traffic, but it makes driving a nightmare experience for anyone from out-of-town. And the problem is not unique to Oxford. I wasted 25 teeth-grinding minutes at Wallingford, playing musical parking bays in Waitrose' huge car park. With maybe 80 parking bays, and 100 cars, the near-never-ending game nearly had me in tears, as I drove round and round the brand spanking new car park, while cursing the crap architectural decision to not build multi-storey or below ground. For all this nation's wonders and treats, this is s another example of that unique English level of incompetence (or dildometry, as one of my co-workers is fond of saying), that creeps up on you just when you think you're sure (finally) that you're in a first-world nation.

After Sunday morning in Oxford, I headed north-west to Bourton-on-the-Water, in the Cotswolds. The travel blurb describes Bourton as England's answer to Venice. It is true that there is a canal in Bourton, and cloudy skies just like when I visited Venice, but that's the limit the comparison. Still, Bourton is quaint and very charming, and worth a visit for an hour or so, or longer, if the Victorian attractions of the Giant Hedge Maze and Birdland catch your fancy. How bored were they back then? There is also a car museum at the end of the high street. I didn't visit, but according to the signage, it's the home of Brum.

The Cotswolds are beautiful, but I suspect they are far prettier with the lush flora and blue skies that come with the summer months. I drove south through the water park, towards the M4. Around this time of my trip, it struck me just how small Great Britain actually is. Time permitting, I had hoped to visit Bristol, but expected to be waylaid long before by poor roads, and insurmountable distance. I left Bourton around 3:30, and made it to Bristol well before 6pm. That left me plenty of time to visit Brunel's impressive Clifton Suspension Bridge, have dinner, and make my way back to London, arriving by 10pm.

I only wish I remembered to fill up the tank before returning the car to Hertz. Thoughout the trip I was paying £1 ($2.30) per litre at the pump. I didn't even get a smile with that from the sales clerks. The first time I remembered to fill the car before returning it, was when the Hertz invoice arrived a few days later. By my rough calculations, Hertz charged at least £2 per litre. Nice.