August 14, 2006 Driving through the Cotswolds with the directionally impaired


Church tower at Chipping Campden
Today was our first big driving day. Our goal this morning was to go to Bourton on the Water, about 5 miles from our hotel in Stow on the Wold. After the first 20 miles of driving, we finally realized we were on the wrong road. Of course, this 20 miles took about an hour, so it was difficult to tell how far we were going, because at 20 mph and stopping every time oncoming traffic came by, it was hard to figure out.

After a lovely walk about and lunch at Burford, a charming town in its own right, we stopped at Northleach, because I thought it looked interesting from the road. Once we got there, John wanted to go someplace he had read about in the guidebook, which was way behind us. Or north. Or south. Or something. We wanted to go to Cheltenham to see the Arts & Crafts museum there, and I wanted to stop in this town to see the Cotswold museum and perhaps the museum of mechanical instruments. There wasn’t time to do both and go to Cheltenham. So, off we went to Bibury. Or so I thought. But then it turned out that he was directing me to Cheltenham. I, of course, just follow directions. It’s enough work to try to keep the car on one side of the road and not turn off into the wrong lane or into the ditch or into oncoming traffic. If one is going to drive on an alternate side of the road, one should be young when she first undertakes this task. Notice in the following picture, the car still has both mirrors. It does however, have a giant scratch on the left side which I don’t think was there when we got it, and which I’m not aware of having done, but I’m sure I did. Thank god I got the expensive covers everything insurance.



So anyway, after a giant fight, we move on to Cheltenham. Once in Cheltenham, we realize that a. we don’t know the name of the museum, and b. aren’t really sure it’s actually in Cheltenham. I also fail to make a right turn, which ends up with my eventually turning into a bike lane and having to turn the car around in a space that would have been difficult to turn a bike around in. We are now leaving Cheltenham and heading for Evesham. This because we don’t know where or what the museum is, so we decide to leave town. How stupid is that?

We’re not really going to Evesham, though, just in that direction. After about 10 or 20 wrong turns, it appears that we are indeed on the road to Evesham which is also the general direction of Broadway which is described as a town that is a victim Insert Broadway right of its own popularity. Actually there were some nice galleries in Broadway, and it’s very cute, and the sun came out while we were there, and they had an easy to find car park and free restrooms. If that’s a victim, I’m all for it. While we were there, I stopped in at the tourist bureau and found out that the museum was indeed at Cheltenham. But it was now too late to go back there.

At 5 p.m., they rolled up the sidewalks in Broadway and closed the doors of every shop. No reason to do anything but move on. Following another missed turn, we made it out of Broadway and onto the A44 and headed for Chipping Campden.

This is another town that’s supposed to be very picturesque. Frankly, I can’t see why they call some picturesque and not others. They are all cute and look like Beatrix Potter characters or Alice in Wonderland will show up any minute. I like them all. So, we left Broadway and went to Burton on the Water, where we thought we were going when we left home this morning. B-O-T-W is another picturesque town which had a canal running through it (looks to be about 2 feet deep) and 5 bridges that you can probably see all at once if you’re standing on the first or last one. Insert Burton center Since it was after 5 p.m., the sidewalks were already rolled up, and nothing was open but restaurants. The first one we looked at advertised “surf & turf, strawberries, and a .25L bottle of Ernest & Julio Gallo wine for L9.95. Actually that’s a bargain price for dinner, but we went to another place across the way and I had some really delicious pasta and John had a chicken, ham & leek pie with a crust that you had to keep beating to keep it from floating off the plate.