Visits Britain

I am an arthritic, 6'3", 75-year-old who returned from a 3-week trip to Britain on Sept. 19, 2007.

I find it well worth the additional cost to upgrade to British Air’s World Traveler Plus section (coach-plus) — much more seat and legroom. They often offer special rates to their frequent flyers.

British Air also offers online seat and boarding pass choices 24 hours prior to one’s flight. It is a godsend to miss the huge lines at New York’s JFK and Heathrow, as one can just walk up to the separate bag-drop counters.

For the first part of my visit I attended the annual conference of the British Heather Society. I then picked up a car from Enterprise Rent-A-Car (800/261-7331; www. enterprise.co.uk/car_rental).

They have about 200 locations throughout Britain and are one of the few who will rent to older folk. At their Heathrow office on Northern Perimeter Road, fresh-made coffee and tea are always available and sometimes biscuits. The staff is very friendly and attentive.

I usually access their website from the USA and click on a link to the UK site. However, that seems to be a different site than their regular British site; the link gives a rate in British pounds but does not include the Collision Damage Waiver. Their regular British site includes CDW but indicates that non-Brits who hold a credit card that covers same will not be charged for it.

I always rent the most inexpensive automatic car because of my height and the fact that I am on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road and am navigating by myself. I have found that Enterprise always has the smaller automatic cars, such as the Nissan Micra that I rented on this trip — good on petrol and for getting down narrow lanes.

Including VAT and with unlimited mileage, the car cost £181 (near $364) for almost two weeks’ rental, Sept. 7-19. I paid with a Visa card, which covers CDW for 31 days. (The Enterprise website states that the renter must provide proof that his card provides coverage for damage and so CDW purchase is unnecessary. I also carry the little booklet from Visa that indicates the card covers damage and theft, but I have never been asked to show it.)

I put 1,313 miles on the car. Enterprise had a one-hour grace period for returning the car, and that is hard to find these days. Afterward, I received the usual card for an upgrade or a 10% discount on my next rental. Since I like the smaller cars, I take the discount.

I was able to stop again at Eden Camp (phone 011 44 [0] 165369777 [if calling within Britain, delete the first six numbers], www.edencamp. co.uk), a living-history museum on six acres at the junction of the A-64 and A-169 in Malton, Yorkshire. It tells of the people of Britain and their troops during WWII. It is housed in a series of Quonset huts that held German and Italian prisoners of war.

Each hut is on a different topic. For instance, one shows a typical wartime shopping street, and you can see in the shop windows such things as 3-tiered cardboard cakes that were rented for parties, as the ingredients to bake real cakes were not available.

And it is not all nationalistic Rah! Rah! A display on the war in Asia tells of the premature surrender of Singapore to the Japanese due to false intelligence on the number of Japanese troops.

There is one hut decked out like a military canteen with music of that era, coffee served in large white mugs and great prices. The gift shop offers low-price books written by those who participated in the war and probably difficult to find elsewhere.

Allow at least three hours for a visit. It’s open from the second Monday in January seven days a week until Dec. 23. Entry for seniors costs £3 ($6). There is plenty of free parking plus bus service from York and other northern Yorkshire towns.

A few miles south on the A-64 is Castle Howard (phone 011 44 [0] 1653648444, www.castlehoward. co.uk). Open daily 11 a.m.-5 p.m., March 1-Nov. 4 and Nov. 24-Dec. 16, it is well signed, and one drives for quite a distance off the main road to get there.

While the building is of great interest, the gardens — which many miss seeing during a visit — are maintained by professional horticulturists. As you face the main building, walk to the right up the hill where there are vast plantings of flowering trees and shrubs — a real joy. Maps are available of some of the plantings.

The gardens are open 10-5 all year (except Christmas Day). Tickets for the house and garden cost £10 ($20) adult, £9 senior and £6.50 child and for the garden only, £7.50, £7 and £5.

There are 1,000 acres of gardens, a section of which was formed in 1997 with the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew into the Castle Howard Arboretum Trust. This is open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. March 1 through November and can be entered with a regular ticket or a ticket just for the arboretum (£4.50 adult, £2 child).

There is also a Plant Centre & Tea Shop on the grounds which can be entered free of charge and can give one a glimpse of the grounds when driving to it, if visiting times are short.

To see such spots and stay as long as I wish to is why I enjoy traveling by rental car.

WALTER K. WORNICK

Alstead, NH