andamu

Sunset at O'Hare, Dec. 31, '02, waiting for our flight to board.

Two years ago today we arrived at Heathrow for a two-and-a-half week vacation in the U.K. Vacation? In the U.K. in January?! Dear reader, your incredulity is certainly well-founded, but we had a number of reasons for going at that time. The advantage of going to Britain (or indeed most of Europe apart from the ski resorts) during winter is that it is outside the tourist season, resulting in lower prices and smaller crowds. Also, most private accommodations (Bed & breakfast, self-catering etc.) and many hotels, even four and five star ones, have neither air-conditioning, nor good ventilation; summer is generally too brief to warrant the expensive overhaul of ancient buildings. But during that period, the heat settles in like a hot wet blanket, suffocating and impossible to escape. Heating, on the other hand, they have had a lot of practice with!

The disadvantages are first, that it is outside tourist season, so a number of tourist attractions are either closed (like the London Eye’s annual maintenance overhaul) or have shortened hours, and second, that it is, well, midwinter! It is cold, especially when walking outside for extended periods, and daylight is precious. Sunrise and sunset when we arrived were at 8.06 a.m. and 4.02 p.m. respectively; by the time we left it had stretched to 7.58 a.m. and 4.23 p.m. On top of that, our trusty Dorling Kindersley travel guide warned us that the average daily hours of sunshine during January in both London and the “Heart of England” was a miserly 1.5.
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I had had the opportunity to visit England and Wales for 8 weeks in the summer of 1996 as a journalist. It had been a wonderful experience, but also a very frustrating one. I did not have transport of my own (the vehicle was rented in another journalist's name), so unless we were in a city with a good public transport system, I was relatively stranded. Also the work hours were such, and the itinerary so cramped that I had the minimum free time (and much of that had to be spent at the laundrette).
I did however grab every possible opportunity to do as much sightseeing as possible, and this trip was an attempt to fill in the blanks for me, and for me to show mpo a lot of the things that I had valued on my previous trip.
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Rule #1: NEVER plan to drive a significant distance straight off a transatlantic flight.

I sleep poorly – if at all – on planes, and the previous night had not seen much sleep either, given my excitement and the inevitable worry about little details.
In Britain, even spouses have to pay a sizeable extra fee to drive a rental car. Thus, given that I grew up, got my license and drove for ten years in a country where we drive on the left side of the road in right hand drive, stick shift vehicles, I became the sole driver of the ice blue Fiat Stilo.

The rhythmic slap of the windshield wipers through the pouring rain, the release of anticipatory tension and more than 48 hours with little or no sleep turned slumber into a heavy weight that slowly and inexorably pressed down on my eyes and the back of my head.
I tried everything I could to fight it off: frequently and violently shook my head, got mpo to talk to me in a constant stream, directed icy cold air full force on my face, turned on the radio full blast and experimented with classical, jazz, rock and talk radio, chewed gum, drank soda – but nothing, NOTHING could dissuade the creeping sleep for more than a few minutes at a time.

In desperation I pulled off at the first truck stop, parked the car in a quiet spot and put the seat back so that I could sleep for a while: and was immediately wide awake!
After half-an-hour of unsuccessfully trying to sleep, we got out, visited the rest rooms, had a belated lunch in the food court, stocked up on candy and soda, and grabbed some fresh air among the raindrops.
With daylight frittering away, we knew it would be disastrous to be on the road for too long after dark, so we got back on the highway. Within ten minutes, I was fighting off the same insistent, importune sleep.

We ended up hopping from truck stop to truck stop, (roughly thirty miles apart, if memory serves), until our nightmarish ride finally came to an end on the outskirts of Bristol. By now it was strongly dark, and we had to find our hotel in an unfamiliar city with a lot of confusing roundabouts. Which brings us to this:

Rule # 2: Avoid searching for addresses after dark, especially in unfamiliar places.

I started writing my United Kingdom travelogue because... because... well, truth be told, because I am incredibly verbose and I just can't make do with one word where I could possibly use fifteen.
I had been making some graphic layouts with some of the pictures from that journey, and I kept feeling the need to set the scene, place everything in context, tell the story behind the picture - which would ruin the layout but, without which, the layout is incomplete.
As a compromise I promised myself that I would write the whole story down, as a companion document.
"Uh-oh," you are no doubt thinking. "A brief to tell the whole story? Here comes trouble."
And you are right. As I progressed, I realized that telling every day, day-by-day is not enough. Now I have stories behind those stories to tell. And so the travelogue split into three pieces, distinct but complementary.

• The chronological sequence.
• The Rules. Actually an explanation or "translation" of things that would be unusual to people outside of the United Kingdom, along with some down-home travel tips.
• Some thoughts relating to preparation, including choice of travel guides, atlases, accommodation and the like.

Yes, I did warn you, didn't I?
Editing and reorganizing the (incomplete) work for blog posts brought a new dimension to the travelogue: I can now use hyperlinks to illustrate and annotate various aspects. And I will launch straight into that with this post.
You have already been exposed to Rules #1 and #2. Here then is Rule #3, because it is relevant, and will help make sense of both what came before and what is to come later.
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Rule #3: Roundabouts are and are not Traffic Circles.

Roundabouts are unnerving and strange, and totally intimidating. The first three or four times that you use them, that is.
No matter how well you prepare you are likely to mess up a bit, miss your turn, land in the wrong lane, go around three times, and get a couple of horns blaring at you.

So what.

Like most things in life you'll soon get the hang of them and wonder what all the fuss had been about.
They are used all over Britain in place of traffic lights or entries and exits to highways.

SmartDriving has clear and simple advice on using a roundabout: Traffic moves around in a clockwise direction and you give way (yield) to traffic already circulating before you enter. 1. Turning left Approach in the left-hand lane with a left-turn signal. Maintain your signal and position as you drive to your exit. Cancel your signal after you leave the roundabout. 2. Going ahead Approach in the left-hand lane without a signal. Keep left as you drive to your exit. Signal left as you pass the exit before the one that you intend to take. 3. Turning right Signal right, approach in the right-hand lane, maintain your signal and position until you are passing the exit before the one you want, signal left and move to the left-hand lane in order to leave the roundabout. The 12 o’clock rule As a general rule, exits beyond ‘12 o’clock’ can be considered as right turns unless local conditions or markings indicate otherwise (this is a general rule - commonsense will guide you!)

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Wikipedia has a very thorough article on roundabouts, including a marvelous animation of a roundabout in action, right down to the turn indicators on the little cars.
2pass has an interactive applet, with audio, and step-by-step animations.

Rule #4: Crustless cucumber sandwiches at High Tea are not the only kind of sandwich in England.

The British seem very good at inventing things, and then losing the knack for it after a while. Take soccer for instance, or cricket. These days they struggle just to get anywhere in the final eight in competitions (and in cricket there are only ten countries competing!)

One thing that bucked the trend seems to be sandwiches: reportedly invented by the Earl of Sandwich (or more likely his cook or butler), the humble meal is still made exceptionally well in Britain.

Sandwiches in the U.S. mean anything edible that has two bread-like objects stuck on either side of a filling. The range includes hamburgers and subs all the way to the humble peanut butter and jelly on Wonderbread. In vending machines and gas station convenience stores it also applies to soggy bread and bland contents packed in a transparent triangular plastic container.
The sandwiches in Britain to which I frequently refer in the Travelogue bear little resemblane to any of these, apart from the triangular plastic containers. The closest you can come in American terms are true NY deli sandwiches, but with lots more flair.

Compared to the average American sandwich, the first difference is that these actually are made with real bread; good bread that has taste and texture, and frequently even specialty breads that complement the fillings.
Which is a perfect segue to the second difference: the fillings themselves. The list is long and varied, imaginative and tasty. Obviously the omnivores have the largest variety, but at every level of dietary restriction there are options, and even for vegetarians there are usually at least four or five choices. An extract of one menu reads like this:

All Day Breakfast Big BLT Big Prawn & Spinach Big Roast Beef Chicken and Avocado Chicken Caesar Chicken Salad Mayo Frais Coronation Chicken Crayfish & Rocket Egg and Tomato on Rye Egg Mayo Fresh Herb Chicken

Ham, Cheese & Mustard Ham & Eggs Bloomer Ham Salad Mayo Frais Houmous & Oven Roasted Tomato Mature Cheddar & Pickle More Than Mozzarella Smoked Salmon Super Club Thai Chicken Tuna Mayo Turkey Club

Every large grocery store and drug store has a section stacked every morning with a large number of freshly made sandwiches, and several dedicated sandwich shops like Pret-A-Manger have sprung up. By now, most of these have followed the usual pattern of slowly expanding their range to include sushi, baguettes, wraps and soups, but they started as sandwich (and cappuccino) shops.
The commuting workers' routine includes dashing through their favorite store and picking up a sandwich for lunch on the way to work. If they wait until lunch, the once solidly-packed shelves will likely be mostly bare.
These sandwiches are a wonderful resource for the astute traveler. Picking up a couple allows you to explore without reference to time. They don't need to be heated (unlike many American sandwiches) and fill the spot perfectly if you get an attack of the munchies after the hard work of exploring and clambering all over the place. Having them for lunch cuts a fair bit from the budget, and if you happen to lunch in a pub or restaurant or teashop instead, the sandwiches will keep well for the next day. (Obviously exercise care and common sense if you bought a shrimp or rare roast beef sandwich and it has spent some time in the sun!)

Belatedly the rule to which the Wells post alluded.

Rule #5: Navigating inside towns will be hell – on foot is frequently easier.

Generally street names are really well-marked inside cities: white signs with big black letters, frequently mounted on the sides of buildings.
The exception is of course the intersection where you are unsure where to go, especially when you are feeling pressured by the volume of traffic consisting of competent drivers who know where they are going and want to get there as soon as possible.

The physical aspects of the streets also contribute to the problem. Remember, towns were built and roads laid out many centuries before the motor car and the population explosion brought large traffic volumes roaring through town, so they are very narrow. Also, towns grew organically so the streets are crooked and winding: no organized grid layout here.

In an attempt to reconcile the narrowness of the streets with the volume of traffic, many roads are one way. This is the other gotcha of navigation, because just when you think you know where you are going, with all the signs boldly visible, you run into a one way in the other direction.
Naturally, since you are used to the grid layout, you try to navigate around it, but now you keep running into crooked streets, odd-angled intersections and other one ways that prevent you from getting where you want to go. After 20 minutes of this, you finally break out of the maze – and land back right where you started: at the first one way that caused all the trouble.

Most big towns have Park & Rides prominently marked among the main roads leading into town: USE THEM!
The buses are regular, the experience is inexpensive, and despite the fact that buses move slower than a car, they will get there much faster than you can because they know where they are going and they frequently have special lanes and privileges.
If asked, the bus driver will tell you exactly where to get off and, more importantly, where to stand to catch the return bus. On top of that you will not have to search forever to find a tiny parking spot into which you squeeze the car with (seemingly) scarcely an inch to spare, and then pay an exorbitant parking fee for the honor.

Be forewarned: All bets are off if you need to venture into residential areas.
Except for modern developments, the houses are packed row upon row, many of them terraces (what are called townhouses in the U.S.), with no driveways or garages since cars were not even a twinkle in someone’s eye when they were built.
This results in two way streets where it would have been barely comfortable moving past traffic in the opposite direction under the best of circumstances, now lined solidly trunk to hood (or boot to bonnet) by the residents’ vehicles on both sides of the road. Good luck!

A word to the wise: Don’t even consider driving in London.
On the outskirts and the ring roads it is still manageable, if slow-going, so picking up and dropping off a rental vehicle for your extended stays outside London should be fine. But inside the city you will find all the problems mentioned above, to the nth degree, and for the most part parking is non-existent.
Public transport on the other hand is ubiquitous, regular, inexpensive if done right, and will take you from just about anywhere to just about everywhere.
The trick is to buy your first ticket of the day after rush hour, i.e. after 9 a.m. This allows you to get an all-day pass for all public transport – Underground, buses and trains – dirt cheap; we stayed way out in Zone 4 and our daily passes were around £ 2.50 each. You would easily pay double that for your first half-an-hour of parking. If you could find any.