A couple of good choices helped us have a really good time in England this year.

First was choosing British Airways for the flights. They were cheaper than Air Canada and offered a better seat. They use the far superior Terminal 5 at Heathrow, which aided transit significantly. Oh, and they gave us a free, and un-requested, upgrade on our seats for the flight home. Well done BA!

Then it was choosing Sixt car rental. They’re physically located in Terminal 5, which is a massive plus, meaning no bus trips off site. Their price was all inclusive, no extras unless I asked for them. Yes, I was upsold a better car, which pushed the rental price up by quite a lot, but the car, an automatic Audi A3, was the mutt’s nuts, very comfortable and very easy on the juice.

Our next success was the choice of cottage in Yorkshire. It was an outstanding rental and suited us a couple perfectly. Being November, it was also very reasonably priced. I had my doubts about its location, but as it turned out we were ideally placed to do the city trips, Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds, and keep the mileage to a minimum.

Booking public transit ahead of time was good. We’d ordered Tourist Oyster cards (pre-paid travel cards) for London, which was essential, but we also booked trips to Liverpool and to Birmingham on mainline trains, and the Heathrow Express in London, getting good deals along with the discount travelcard (£30 for a Two Together card, giving 33% off most train fares) that we’d also ordered ahead of time. We didn’t get to do the Liverpool trip by train, but because I’d booked online, the train company emailed the night before travel to say that trains had been cancelled, and offered a refund. That gave us time to rejig our plans, and I did get the fares back.

We’d kept looking to see if ITV’s Coronation Street Experience in Manchester would be available while we were in England, and just a week or two before we set off, they opened up a few days and we were able to book a couple of places on that. It was a seriously mad experience, but really worth doing.

The London accommodation was a good pick, too, although there is a lot of choice and I’m sure there were many other good places we could have chosen. We were wise to stay a little out of Central London and use the excellent and inexpensive transit systems to travel in each day, not just from a cost point of view. Travelling home on the bus at night was a joy to behold, to see the (other) city that never sleeps.

We did a fair bit of walking, in London at least, and while tiring, it was wonderful to see so much in such a small area. Public transit is OK, but Shanks’ Pony worked well for us on a couple of occasions.

I think England, and London particularly, is a great place to eat and drink. Yes, we searched out those foods that are familiar to us, but dropping into pubs for pints of beer, gins, and football, is a great way to spend a rainy afternoon. The vegan choices on pretty much all London menus kept SWMBO very happy indeed, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that we gorged ourselves the whole time.

If there was one negative thing, it was being in England in November. The weather we knew, but I’d clean forgotten just how early it gets dark there, being considerably closer to the North Pole than our little home in Canada (we live on the same latitude as Milan). In London it wasn’t so important as everything stays open late there anyway, but any outdoor activity has to be completed by 4pm at the latest. Still, you live and learn.

It’s a shame, but I don’t think we’ll be heading back to the UK for a while now, unless family matters arise. We need to start saving again!

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