Friday, April 9, 2010

Road Trip to Bath - Part 1 - Castle Combe

For Easter weekend, I rented a car for a road trip to Bath, which is about a 2.5 hour drive west from London. I had not driven yet in the UK and felt that it was about time.









I took the bus down to the Enterprise Rent A Car office by Russell Square, and picked up the car. The car was an automatic so I wouldn't have to worry about learning to shift with the opposite hand. Adapting to driving on the opposite side of the road would prove challenging enough. Of course I purchased full insurance.



There was a surreal moment when I slipped into the opposite side of the car to drive for the first time. Ultimately, it proved to be less difficult than I imagined.







In no time, we were out of London and on the M4 heading west. If not for some patches of heavy rain, and a few traffic accidents we passed (none that I was involved with) we would have made better time.


Our first stop was at a small town called Castle Combe. It is a small fairytale village which has served as the filming location for the original Dr. Doolittle movie as well as the recent charming film, Stardust. It looks like a village right out of time.

As we parked the car in the parking lot outside of the town, and walked down the tree covered road, I couldn't help but feel that we were being transported back through time to some sleepy Brigadoon style village.

There was a magnificent mansion that has been converted into a hotel called conveniently, "The Mansion House Hotel".





There is a huge front lawn with a croquet course. It even has a stream running through the idyllic property.







It would be really neat to come back here in the middle of summer for a getaway weekend..

But it was getting late, so it was time to make our way onto Bath. Tony plotted in our course using my iPhone to navigate us.

Unfortunately, sometimes it plots a very unusual course, so we ended up driving this 1 lane unfinished country road. It was a bumpy rocky ride, but untimately we made it to Bath.

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