The Cotswolds, which had been admired as the most beautiful rural area in the U.K. by William Morris, was one of the places which I had been eager to visit for a long time. To tell the truth, however, I didn't know where it was in the U.K., but when I was looking around Oxford on the map, I happened to find it. I was very happy to know that the Cotswolds was really close to Oxford. I decided to fit the Cotswolds drive in our trip schedule. It was not the first time to drive a car abroad, and the U.K. adopts left-hand traffic like Japan. The driving would be ok, except roundabouts.
It was raining today. So sorry, but we started for the office of Hertz, the car-rental company. We wanted to walk to their office, but we took a taxi due to the rain. The taxi driver was a nice guy and apparently from the Mid-east, though I didn't ask him. We were designated a KIA car at the booking, but an Audi car was actually ready for us. The car was still new. Really lucky! However, as soon as I drove the car, I found that the fuel level wasn't full. I pointed the fact out to a company's staff and he checked it out, but it caused a failure in transaction and I'll write about that later. The rental-related procedure looked rough compared with that of Japanese.
It seemed that the automatic transmission wasn't popular in the U.K. and I asked the car rental company to prepare a car with it in advance, and I also heard that the navigation system was rare in rented cars due to the increasing number of thefts, so I made a route map up before the rental and my daughter guided me to follow the scheduled route. I missed the route a few times, but I was able to notice my failure within five minutes. If you don't have the navigation system in your car, it would be a really helpful way. Actually though, our audi car was equipped with a navigation system, but we used my smartphone as the route map.
The first destination was Burford, an hour's drive from Oxford. The following pictures show the parking lot and the streets around. When we were going out of the car, the rain became heavier. Oh, no!
ウィリアム・モリスがイギリスで最も美しい田舎の風景と讃えたコッツウォルズは一度は訪れたい場所だった。どのあたりにあるのか知らなかったが、娘が留学したことで図らずも訪れることになったオックスフォードを地図で眺めていてコッツウォルズを発見した。オックスフォードから１時間程度だという。これは訪ねてみなければなるまい。ということで今日は終日コッツウォルズドライブ。海外でのレンタカーは初めてではないものの不安はある。が、日本と同じ左側通行。なんとかなるかな。ラウンドアバウトだけが少し心配だが。
しかし、今日は雨、、、泣けてくる。レンタカーはハーツを利用した。営業所まで２ｋｍほどだが、タクシーを利用した。ドライバーは感じの良い人。尋ねはしなかったが多分中東出身。予定ではＫＩＡ製の車だったが、貸し出されたのはアウディ！まだ新しく、幸運だったのだが、出発直前に気がついた。ガソリンが１／４程度しかない。すぐに係員に指摘したが、後々、トラブルの元になった。これもまた後で詳しく書く。日本で車を借りるのに比べると随分手続きがラフな感じがした。
イギリスではオートマはまだ少なく、盗難の恐れがありレンタカーにナビは少ないらしい。それで、あらかじめドライブコースをグーグルマップ上で作成しておき、娘がスマホでマップを見ながら案内することとした。時々コースをはずれたが、５分ほどで間違いに気づくのでこれは実に便利な方法だと思う。
まずはＢｕｒｆｏｒｄに立ち寄った。写真は駐車場とその周辺の街並み。車を降りようとした頃になって雨が強くなってきた。なんてこったい。
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