The daily diary of a wandering restaurateur in England.

What do you do when British Airways offers a round trip ticket from Seattle to London for $200? Why, snap up two of those bad boys and jump on a plane, of course! Never mind that it is February and the weather is probably cold and wet, when you get an offer you can't refuse ... you don't!

Without the usual lead time to properly plan for an overseas trip, I could only manage to break away for about a week on such short notice. I knew it would take at least a week just to see London adequately. While Margene would still like to get there some day, we are really not "city people." So the trip would have to be limited to country locales within reasonable driving time of the London airports. With only a week, I didn't want to spend all of it on the road.

We quickly sent e-mails to members of our Affordable Travel Club in England to see who might be able to host us for a couple of days at a time with little notice. The Internet makes everything so much faster and easier that we got the whole trip set up within a few days!

In the following pages I will try to give you an idea of what that week was all about. I confess that I am only uploading this in May 2008, five years after the trip itself. So I can't remember all the details. Still, the photos probably speak more eloquently than I ever could ... and you don't have time for the great American novel anyway!

It was a quick trip, but a great time. If the US dollar ever regains its value against the British pound, we would love to return with more time to explore.

ITINERARY
Monday, February 24 - Seattle > London

Tuesday, February 25 - The Cotswolds
Wednesday, February 26 - The Cotswolds
Thursday, February 27 - Knutsford
Friday, February 28 - Knutsford
Saturday-Sunday, March 1-2 - Heathrow

Monday, March 3 - London > Seattle

© 2003 Restaurant Doctor