On The Road to the Cotswolds
Going Up The Country - Canned Heat
September 11 - 12, 2026
"Not all those who wander are lost"
What We Knew Before We left
We know where we're staying: The Meadow Rise Guest House (pictured above), right in the heart of Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds. Bourton will serve as our home base for two nights while we explore the area by car and on foot.
We also know that we're taking the Tube to Heathrow to pick up our rental car, avoiding the challenge of driving out of London. Of course, 31 years ago, when we first drove out of London without the benefit of GPS, we managed to drive for about 30 minutes and end up right back at the exact same intersection in front of Charing Cross Station — all the while convinced we were heading west toward our first stop, Lyme Regis.
This time, we should be on the road by 10:00 AM at the latest with our Budget rental car. And I will try not to repeat something I did on that first trip: opening the passenger door, only to discover that the steering wheel was on the other side.
Myrna doesn't like to drive our rental cars, even when we're driving on the right side of the road. But it does take her a few days to stop instinctively moving toward the left side of the car when she gets in as a passenger. Whenever I see her do it, I always say, "So, you want to drive now?"
After four or five times, it gets a little old.
Going Up The Country
You may have noticed the Canned Heat subheading. "Going Up The Country" is a 1968 song about leaving the city behind and heading somewhere where, according to the song, the water tastes like wine and you can stay drunk all the time.
I've always heard the words as "I'm going up to THE country," but there is no THE in the song. Apparently, I've been singing it wrong for all these years.
This time, though, we're literally going up the country. So the song seems like the perfect soundtrack for leaving London behind and heading toward the Cotswolds.
Here is a link to a live performance of the song by Canned Heat. It's on a dance show from 1970. You will get a kick out of it and see it you can spot the obvious lip-synching and flute-synching.
What We Don't Know Before We Left Today
Pretty much everything else.
We have some suggestions for roads and stops from another conversation, but the route is far from set in stone. Weather, traffic, timing and whatever catches our eye along the way may all have a say in which roads we actually take.
And that's part of the fun.
After all, if we knew exactly where we'd be going, what we'd see and when we'd get there, it wouldn't really be a road trip, would it?
What We Are Finding Out
First of all, not taking the Tube back to the Airport and then the rental car shuttle with all the baggage was a great idea. Other than the cost at 100 pounds with tip, our cab driver go us right the the counter of Avis/Budget. I rented with Budget because Avis was giving much higher prices but in the end Avis and Budget are the same entity at the airport. Only slight difference. Heathrow Avis has a Preferred desk but Budget doesn't have a FastBreak desk here.
So we had to go in line which took an extra 20 minutes or so. The agent, Olga, was very nice but she could not find us a car that could take 2 large pieces of luggage. She sent me out to look at 3 cars and as Myrna and I were seeing if anything could fit in any of cars. It wasn't working even though they were offering free gas if I took one of the smaller cars to compensate. In the end, Olga came out of the office and told us to take the BMW 3 series. A very nice car with lots of room for luggage. Thank you Olga but my 70 year old body doesn't slip into that car like my Ioniq 5. She had offered me an electric car but when I told her we were going to Wales, she didn't recommend it.
So, after inspection and setting the GPS to our first intermediate destination we were off. The reason we rented out of Heathrow was to avoid the runaround we had 31 years ago and being in the exact same place a hour after leaving. Well, history repeated itself and we did the same thing. After about a hour, we ended up in the exact same place. We laughed it off but an extra hour of driving on the wrong side of the road was pretty stressful.
In the end we made to Bourton-on-the-Water by just after 4pm. We settled in, had a nice walk and had another round of Fish and Chips plus a nightcap.
Tomorrow will be busy here in Bourton, so we will be leaving town after breakfast and only coming back later in the day.
Our full day in the Cotswolds
We lucked out again today on the weather as it only started to rain literally 2 minutes after we were back at our B&B. We took the advice of AI and our hosts and started early to find parking spaces in some little towns. The only place we didn't stop on our list was Broadway Tower and Broadway itself. The 2 reasons we skipped Broadway Tower was the wind and impending dark clouds (which never materialized), and the £20 admission fee plus parking. In CAD that would have been over $80. Since it was 90 minutes from closing, it really wasn't in our interest to visit. We then attempted Broadway (Town). That was a zoo, and the few paid parking spaces available were too tight to chance dinging our nice BMW. Instead we hit the narrow roads to Cheltenham. By chance, we passed over a steam train carrying a bunch of tourists. It was quite a sight and you might want to watch a video I took to the coal stoking the engine. I could almost feel the heat from the boiler on the overpass where I was recording.
Nature was calling as we entered Cheltenham and, as usual, it called for a mandatory pit stop at a local pub. Here, our bartender, Sophia, noticed that we might just be Canadian. We had a great conversation since she was leaving on a trip to Canada in 2 days. We shared some tips and I gave her her first Canadian 5 dollar bill.
We ate a pizza in the town that was ok, which worked out because the rain started as we got back to the B&B we really could not have walked around our town.
On to Wales and hopefully the big surprise, It's says it will take 3 1/2 hours but we will probably double that.