15 Oct Driving through the UK with Hertz. Intro.
As I sit in bed in an apartment in Birmingham I think of two things.
First, the wonderful week that I had touring many places in England.
Second, another week ahead to be spent in London due to work.
Outside it is raining and as I stretch and yawn I cannot stop thinking how lucky I was during my sightseeing trip and got only 10 minutes of light rain on a single day.
I booked a car from Hertz as usual, hence the title of the article, and made my way thru Cornwall, Dorset, Devon and the Cotswolds in a trip that really showed me a beautiful side of England.
Before starting my post I would like to mention the fact that I didn’t receive any form of sponsorship or aid from Hertz, all car expenses, insurance, gas, etc. were paid fully by me. I just enjoy renting from them since i find the process easy, the prices are decent and I get fast support on Facebook each time I write them asking questions.
What I will do is list you my route, and I’m pretty sure I have forgotten some places, and walk you thru them one by one.
This was the kind of trip I always wanted to take, checking the weather in the morning, booking some places, cancelling others, etc. so in the end I got exactly what I wanted. No minuses and no extras.
I landed in Birmingham and after renting the car from the Hertz airport office I slept at a friend in the city for one night and left very early the next morning.
At the end my trip looked like this:
Day 1 drive to Bedruthan Steps-St Ives(sleep in St Ives)
Day 2 Morazion- St Michael- Mullion Harbour- Kynance Cove-Lizard point-Cadgwith- Godrevy Point (sleep in St Ives)
Day 3 Mousehole, Merry Maidens, Penberth, Porthcurno, Land’s End, Botallack, Sennen Cove, Lanyon Quoit.(sleep in St Ives)
Day 4 drive to Mevagissey, Polperro, West Bay, Hive Beach, Weymouth, Pulpit Rock (sleep in Weymouth)
Day 5 Old Harry rocks, Durdle Door, Lulworth cove, Stair hole and Bat’s head (sleep in Weymouth)
Day 6 drive to Clovelly & Ilfracombe (sleep in Ilfracombe)
Day 7 drive to Bourton on the water, Lower Slaughter, Snowshill, Broadway (sleep in Broadway)
Day 8 drive to Stow on the Wold then Clent hills and back to Birmingham.
Before finishing this post I will have returned the small Clio I rented so I will be able to tell you exactly how many kilometers I covered but I’m pretty sure it is a big number.
Update: 1792 km driven.
On this series I will also review my accommodation in St Ives, Weymouth, Ilfracombe and Broadway.
Originally my trip was supposed to cover Rye and Willersley also but one due to distance and the other due to bad weather starting to form made me cancel them.
Also I will cover a few of the places I ate during my trip.
I didn’t check many new restaurants as usual and for the first time I did no research at all on eating out.
I just tried my luck and I think I will keep doing this contrary to my articles until now where I advised doing a bit of research before getting into a new city.
The thing with road trips, unlike city trips, is that you cannot predict weather, traffic, stops along the way or how your body reacts to hunger on those days.
If I am staying a week in London for example, yes I will search some decent places to eat but if I am constantly driving between points of interest, looking to see as much as possible I think planning my meals is just a burden so I chose not to do it.
I did eat some great meals on my trip and I can honestly recommend some places but most days I got on by with eating breakfast, then a sandwich at lunch and dinner at a close place to my accommodation.
When you’re driving 400 kilometers one day you’re not that eager to cross town for a restaurant for your dinner.
I distinctively remember one day checking my phone and seeing that until 13 hours I already made about 12 to 13000 steps so I said fuck it and ate at a Subway because it was just close to me and I didn’t feel like searching for a local restaurant.
This being covered I must stress on the next point, a first for me, a thing I will surely repeat in other places also, a thing that I will fully cover in a distinct article. Booking a local photo workshop.
You know I like taking pictures and you know I like exploring new places and this photo tour was amazing and I can honestly recommend it to anyone visiting Cornwall.
In a couple of weeks tops I will write about it, tell you what I loved about it and upload pictures taken from it so you can see the places that i visited on that day.
Since I will publish this series in the UK series I will use this title for all articles, modifying only the day at the end and the district so it will be easier for you to search thru the articles when looking for a special location.
Yes, I do plan to change the theme to my blog and make it even more user friendly and better looking but that’s coming in 2019 along with other beautiful trips into new places.
What I will also do in this series is give you the amount of cash I spent on gas, parking and other related car spending so you can get a fair idea about prices.
The first day article will be short because a lot of the day was spent driving but rest assured the rest of the articles will be big and have many pictures in them.
Just before finishing this post I must address a common concern people have when driving in the UK and that is driving on the other side of the road.
I can honestly tell you that this is my second time driving in the UK and after the first miles and first roundabouts it just feels ok (at least for me).
Also I found the drivers to be really well behaved and patient even if you took more time in doing some maneuvers they would finish faster.
The bad part about not wanting to drive here is the fact that in my opinion the places are not that good connected and even more being areas with natural sights you would need to walk a lot between them also.
So by not getting a car you would be doing yourself a huge disadvantage because I guess you would need two to three times more here trying to cover the distances that I covered with a car.
For now that’s about it and see you soon with my next posts detailing the days, the accommodation and some places I ate in while on this trip.
As usual, if in need of help or have questions, you can email me or leave a comment and I will get back to you.