Driving day to Oxford, England -- Wednesday July 3, 2013

Today is primarily a driving day to get to our B & B in Kennington, just outside of Oxford which we have for two nights.  We take the opportunity, though to travel thru the other Lakes Region towns we hear so much about. Ambleside and Windermere on the A591 are even more quaint then Grasmere. They are, however, definitely more crowded so I'm glad we chose where we did.  The countryside all around is wonderful.  I would really like to return here.

We arrived in Kennington in early afternoon.  We are staying at Abodes.  This is the first Bed & Breakfast where there is only one room for rent.  It is basically a room in someones house.  I know Chuck and Jean mentioned they thought that's what many of them were here in England, but we had not come across this until now.  Not sure how I like that.

The King's Arms

Our hostess was very warm in greeting us at the door. Our room was not ready yet so she suggested a good place for lunch:  The King's Arms Pub.  The instructions were funny:  you drive down a small road thru an industrial area, park by the horse pasture, walk over the bridge and along the canal and walk over the lock.  Very quaint!

The Pub was actually on the other side of the Thames River.  This is the river that our friend Jane was encouraging us to rent a canal boat on to take a one or two week tour.  You actually drive them yourself.  Your own little camper on the water! We watched the canal boats going thru this particular lock.  It does seem like it would be fun.  At least if the weather was good.  You can tie up the the side of the canal almost anywhere and get out to walk along the pathways or go to one of the restaurants or pubs along the way.

Sample Canal Boat

The lunch at The King's Arms was great!  Then we walked along the paths for awhile watching the locks being opened and closed and went back to our room to settle in.  Good start to this location!

Oxford is really a walking or bus type city.  It's expensive to park your car and its crowded. While we planned on using the bus tomorrow to get into Oxford to meet up with Pip, we decided to go into the city in the evening when we thought the traffic would be lighter to get our bearings.

It looks like a really interesting city!  It's filled with young people and still really busy at 9 pm on a Wednesday night.  We walked around for awhile and found a pub for dessert and English Coffee.

For all our talk about not being fond of cities, we both feel comfortable in this one!