Travel Misadventures

It’s now time to play the travel misadventures game, and this is probably one of my most miserable ones yet.

I wanted to treat myself to a stay at a castle somewhere along my travels in England and Ireland. My initial thought was the stately Ashcroft Castle in Ireland, but the price tag (at roughly a $1,000 per night) was way, way out of my desired budget range.

I found a more modestly priced castle in southeastern England called Hever Castle. You’ll hear more about it in future posts, but getting there was far from easy.

England has an extensive railway system, but getting from Point A to Point B can oftentimes require lots of changes of trains. I crafted a route from Oxford to Hever that was supposed to look like this: (1) take a bus from Oxford to Heathrow Airport. (2) Make my way from Heathrow Airport to the London Bridge train station. Rather than schlepping my luggage across multiple subway platforms, I thought I’d spring for a taxi for this leg. (3) Take a train from London Bridge to Hever. I deliberately chose this route instead of Victoria Station to Hever because the London Bridge-Hever route was direct and wouldn’t require two changes of trains like the Victoria Station route does. (4) Take a taxi from Hever’s train station to Hever Castle.

Everything started out well. The bus from Oxford to London showed up right on time and the ride went smoothly to Heathrow. After I arrived, It took me a few minutes to find out where the taxi stands are because it required an elevator ride down to a different level. But I found a taxi readily enough, hopped in, and asked to be taken to London Bridge Station.

The taxi driver drove … and drove .. and drove. We were on a freeway. The pounds started clicking up and up. Was my taxi driver taking the dumb American tourist the long way round? No, I looked at my map app. I still had another 45 minutes to go in London traffic. It really DOES take a long time to go from west to east in the big city. We exited the freeway but still kept on driving, wending our way through the city streets. As the price total kept rising, I was telling myself that I should have just taken the subway for a helluva lot less money, even if it did mean dragging my luggage up and down stairs through several stations.

We finally arrive at London Station to the tune of almost 100 GBP (that’s roughly $120 USD). Ouch.

But the fun doesn’t stop there. That direct train to Hever? Ha ha on me, it doesn’t run on Sundays. I’m going to have to change trains twice. Germany has elevators at each train station; I pray that these ones in England do, too.

I’m mollified a bit because the train changes go pretty smoothly and don’t require climbing stairs. I finally arrive at Hever station and think that I can finally relax, call a taxi, and enjoy my first view of Hever Castle.

Wrong again, Stephanie. Hever Station is one of those rural English train stations that has no facilities whatsoever. It looks like the waiting room hasn’t been used in years; it’s locked up tight. And there’s not a taxi anywhere in sight. I try FreeNow, which is an app that works like Uber to call taxis in England. It works great in London, but here in Hever it just tells me there are no taxis available. I try Uber. Nope, not a car to be had.

So I call the hotel, explain my situation, and ask if she can call a taxi for me. The young lady calls me back a few minutes later and tells me that she called all six cab companies and none have any taxis available. Crap. I’ve been in this situation before. Not again. I ask if they have someone who can come pick me up. She tells me they don’t. It sounds like she’s the only one on duty. However, she does tell me that it’s a pleasant walk and the autumn weather is nice.

Now, I’m happy to walk a mile, but prefer not to do it with luggage in tow. Nevertheless, I have no other option, so I hitch my backpack back over my shoulders and start rolling my big backpack through the parking lot. Apple maps tells me to take a footpath to the left.

It’s a narrow footpath with a ditch on the left and a wooden fence on the right. The path is muddy. There are obstacles: gopher holes and tree roots. Sometimes the path slants so much that my suitcase flips over.

Then it gets worse. The path slopes downhill and the mud turns into mostly liquid muck. My sneakers sink down above their shoelaces; I’m worried that I’ll slip and face-plant (or butt-plant) in the muck. That doesn’t happen, but my shoes keep coming off, so I have to keep putting them back on again and slowly pulling them out of the muck. And I wonder if I’ll lose my roller bag altogether.

I somehow make it through the worst section, continue across a grass field and find my way onto an asphalt road. I’m still not happy, though. It’s the kind of road that I always try to avoid: narrow and curving, with no shoulder for pedestrians to stay out of the path of oncoming vehicles. I’m forced to walk in the middle of one of the lanes and pray that a car doesn’t hit me.

I keep walking, and cars miraculously swing around me just in time. When I finally reach the castle grounds, I breath a sigh of relief. Almost over!

But not yet. The signage is crap. I walk towards the castle, only to find out I’ve reached the tour entrance. I have to re-trace my steps and go three-quarters of the way around the castle to reach the reception office.

I’m finally there. There are far more people on staff than I anticipated, three in the office alone, not counting the folks running tours and doing other things. I’m pissed that I’ve gone through all this and they couldn’t have bothered to pick up a guest at what’s allegedly a five-star accommodation.

The desk clerk explains where the breakfast room is and a lot of other information that I’m too damned tired to absorb. I do hear one thing loud and clear, though: the restaurant just closed for the day and won’t be re-opening until Wednesday. I have no car and no way of getting into town to buy dinner. Good thing I bought that pasty at London Bridge; it may be all I get to eat until morning.

My room turns out to be pleasant enough, so that’s a bit of a salve to my disgust and exhaustion. I wash my mud-encrusted sneakers in the bathtub and place them on the heated towel rack, hoping they’ll dry before I check out several days hence. I discover that the bottom four inches of my jeans have mud splatters, too, so I change into a pair of slacks and rinse the jeans out, too.

After I recuperate for an hour or so, I go back to reception and ask how I can reach whatever restaurants in the area are open on Sunday night. They make me a dinner reservation for 6:45pm and arrange a cab to pick me up at 6:30pm. (Why there are cabs at 6:30 but not at 3pm, I never did find out). I ate my pasty at noon and my stomach’s growling but I’ll have to wait. Strangely enough, in this remote rural area, all the restaurants require reservations.

The cab ride is longer than I thought it would be and the restaurant is OK, but I quickly decide that this is unsustainable. It’s 30 GBP round-trip for the taxi and another 30 GBP for my dinner. I don’t want to spend 60 GBP per night on dinner and that doesn’t take lunch into account.

After a long, long day of travel and trials and tribulations, I fall into my very comfortable bed. I vow to find a Deliveroo-type service for the next day. My food can come to me.

Sunday, Nov 5, 2023

NOTE: the photo below isn’t the path I took. It’s just a photo I grabbed off the internet to accompany this post. I was too busy trying to stay upright to take pictures. My path was much narrower and had no option that would allow me to avoid the deepest sections of the muck.