My wife and I spent several days at a resort on Crete during our honeymoon 27 years ago. While lovely, there was nothing else around. That’s great if you want to get away from it all, but boring if you don’t. I could have rented a car so we could go exploring, but I was too afraid.
For our first trip to London with the kids in 2022, there were obviously plenty of things to see and do that are accessible from the Tube. However, there were two sights that we wanted to see that would require us to either rent a car or pay for a very expensive cab or coach. This time, I wasn’t going to let fear prevent me from making the most of this vacation.
The Harry Potter Trip
The trip came about on a whim. One of our family activities when the kids were younger was to read them the Harry Potter series before bedtime. After each book, we’d watch the movie. The “eighth” story, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, has never been made into a movie, nor are there plans to do so. This was late 2021, and the world was slowly coming out of COVID. While the play premiered on Broadway shortly before the world shut down, there was no firm date for its return. Out of curiosity, I looked to see when it was coming back to the Palace Theater on London’s West End where it first premiered. The website said March 2022 and was selling tickets. I showed it to my wife, who said, “Let’s do it!”
We nicknamed this trip “The Harry Potter Trip”. Besides The Cursed Child parts 1 & 2 (two full-length shows that you can see on the same day or spread out), we also planned to take in the Harry Potter Studio Tour in Leavesden Park (a fun coach bus with tablets in the seatbacks for watching The Sorcerer’s Stone was included as part of the package) and, of course, Kings Cross station. We spent quite a few pounds in the Track 9 ¾ store. We also took in many of the other London tourist attractions.
“What is a ‘weekend’?” – Violet Crawley
As a fan of Downton Abbey, I also wanted to visit Highclere Castle, which is about a 90-minute drive from London. One of my wife’s bucket list items was Stonehenge, which turned out to be only a 40-minute drive from Highclere Castle.
Surprisingly, there were no car rental agency offices near our flat in Westminster, which was about a 10-minute walk from Victoria Station. I decided that it was a good time to take Turo for a test drive, so to speak. My only requirement was that it had to be a model not available in the U.S. That criteria immediately knocked the Audi Q3 out of the competition. The 2015 BMW 118i hatchback was very tempting, but it was still too close to the 1 Series coupe and convertible available here, and I felt my family would be much more comfortable in the Citroen Grand C4 Picasso, which also was only a short walk away.
After creating an account in Turo, I panicked because I could no longer find the Citroen. It turns out that there is a setting in your profile where you certify that you can operate a manual transmission, otherwise only automatics show up in your search. After clearing that hurdle, I booked the Citroen for a Tuesday, taking the optional insurance just to be on the safe side. The total was £137.97 for 200 miles. A bit high, but still a substantial savings over the alternatives.
Just a Touch of Dystychiphobia
Once that was all settled, there was one other problem: I was terrified of driving in England. On Crete, my fear stemmed from an accident a friend of mine had in a rented car in Athens several years before. They wouldn’t let her leave the country until she paid about $200 U.S. dollars, which she didn’t have. As for driving in England, this scene kept going through my head:
However, I wasn’t going to be daunted by others’ misfortunes in car rental. So, I did what I do best: Research. Most Americans who had driven on the left for the first time said it was a little disorienting at first, but they got the hang of it quickly. A couple of helpful suggestions were to have other people in the car watching (I had three) and to put a sticky note in the middle of the dash with an arrow pointing to where the middle line in the road should be (if the middle of the road is to your left, you’ve got problems).
After Google Maps sent us to the wrong apartment complex, we finally found the Citroen a few blocks away. We took a walk around the car and a few “before” pictures to be on the safe side, then Ismael handed us the keys, and we both got on the wrong side of the car. It took a little longer than usual to get adjusted (OK – the shift pattern is the same as in the U.S., so first is now up and away from me, and fifth is closest to me…), but then I slowly pulled away from the curb. Even though it was a two-way street, the cars parked on both sides of the street – and not in any consistent direction, either – shrunk it to one lane.
Just as I was coming to the end of the block, a woman turned onto the street in the opposite direction and stopped to wait for me to get out of her way. I tried to get her to back up so I could get around her, or she could have stayed on her side and waited behind the last parked car until I got through, but no. So much for “friendly” English drivers. I backed up into a driveway and let her by. At the end of the block, I then moved onto the left side of the street and put on my right turn signal. “What are you doing?” screamed my wife. “Getting on the correct side of the road,” I retorted. “Oh, yeah.” If one of us was going to be the first to get confused, better her than the one behind the wheel (OK – so making a right turn in the U.K. is like making a left turn in the U.S. I should end up on the far-side of the road…).
Liquid Gold
This Picasso was equipped with the 1.6 BlueHDi diesel engine, which there was precious little of. Fortunately, there was a station just around the corner. I knew I was going to be driving about 200 miles the next day, so I figured I’d just fill it up. For some reason, the fact that diesel was a bit under £8 per gallon didn’t really register. Mixed with the 14.5-gallon tank of the Picasso, the bell finally rang at over £87, or about $114. This was a big shock to someone used to small cars and cheap gas. As the Picasso gets about 50 to 60 miles per gallon, this was overkill, but would ultimately work in my favor.
The next challenge was to find on-street parking near our flat. It took a few passes, but a spot finally opened about a block away. My wife got out to help guide me. Parallel parking is not something I do routinely and sitting on the “wrong” side of the car just upped the ante. I believe I got it on the third try. It was a restless night.
Our tickets for Highclere Castle were for 10AM, and we were on the road by 8. Fortunately, traffic was surprisingly light, and I was able to get out of London and onto the M4 with no problems. It was a cold, overcast and rainy day. In other words, a perfect day to spend mostly in the car. Periodically, my wife would tell me that I was very close to the left edge of the lane (I believe the word used was “grass”), but that was her only complaint.
French Carpet Ride
Once on the M4 – a multilane divided highway that would take us nearly all the way to the castle – I was finally able to sit back, relax, and take in my ride. The Citroen Grand C4 Picasso is part of the European MPV class of vehicles, or “mini minivans with front-hinged rear doors” to us Yanks. Similar in size to the original Honda Odyssey, other forbidden fruits in this class include the Renault Scenic, Volkswagen Touran, and Ford Galaxy. While the name Citroen brings to mind the cute-as-a-bug 2CV or wildly-styled, mechanically-complex cars like the DS, SM and XM, the GC4P didn’t look or feel terribly different than any other vehicle I’ve driven. The slim line front grill with integrated driving lamps with the cool chevron in the middle is very distinctive, as is the expanse of A-Pillar glass ahead of the front doors. Inside, there is a large center-mounted instrument panel, and that’s about all that sets the interior apart.
There was, however, abundant space in the front and rear for the whole family, with a flat floor and rear seats that recline and slide. The fact that the GC4P is very much like a normal car meant that there was a very short learning curve to how everything operates and no need to RTFM. I wasn’t sure if this MPV had the 100 or 120 version of the 1.6 BlueHDi, but acceleration felt surprisingly peppy, and I’m guessing the more powerful version with 118 horsepower and 221lb-ft of torque. According to the specs, 0-60 takes 11.7 seconds. The five-speed manual shifted smoothly, with all that lovely turbo-diesel torque making smooth take-offs easy and downshifts rare, and the Picasso easily loafed along at 75 MPH.
We made it to Highclere Castle well within our appointed time. Cameras are not allowed inside. So, exterior shots will have to do. Scenes set on above-ground floors are shot in the castle, and there are large cardboard photos showing the cast filming scenes in the rooms that are part of the tour. Kitchen and servant-quarter scenes are filmed on a soundstage because the basement of the castle contains one of England’s premiere ancient Egyptian museums. It turns out that Howard Carter, who discovered King Tut’s tomb, was financed by the 5th Lord Carnarvon.
After leaving Highclere Castle, we stopped for a truly mediocre lunch at Chalkhill Blue in Andover, then drove on to Stonehenge. I had no idea that anybody commuting on the A303 could clearly see this ancient monument from the road. It was simply surreal. Aside from getting off at the wrong roundabout spoke, we again had no issues getting there.
Traffic was a little heavier on the way back as we were now encroaching on rush hour. No issues on the M3, but downtown London was very different from that morning. I still tended to hug the left edge, but not in any way that threatened an accident.
“That was some of the best flying I’ve seen yet. Right up to the part where you got killed.”
Our first encounter of the day occurred when our lane split into two, and I realized at the last minute that I needed to be on the left side to go straight and cut off an angry man driving an Alfa Romeo Giulia. He pulled up next to me and started yelling. Again, so much for the “friendly” British driver.
Now, I was a little more nervous. We fished through heavy rush-hour traffic, part of which was on an expressway in downtown London, and I moved right to get off at the next exit. This exit was very narrow. There were calf-high cement curbs on either side with protruding iron bars. The Citroen is very wide and, combined with my tendency to hug the left edge, resulted in the left rear-wheel hopping the curb. While recovering from that shock, the left wing mirror slammed shut against one of the iron bars and the glass went flying. My son asked if I was going back for it. A “no” weakly emanated from my mouth.
I was a wreck. I’d done so well for almost 200 miles and screwed the pooch 10 minutes from my final destination. I just wanted to return the thing and be done. I told Ismael what happened, and he was a bit upset but took it well. He was happy that I was at least returning it with three-quarters of a tank. I figured I was covered because I took the insurance. So, I wasn’t overly concerned about any additional damage, I was just suffering a badly bruised ego.
I ran into Ismael in the supermarket the next day (that’s what I get for renting locally) and he told me he’d taken the Citroen for a drive and couldn’t discern any fallout from the curb hop. He was also willing to look past the scuff on the back of the wing mirror and just wanted the money for new glass. He then told me that Turo would charge him £250 to put in an insurance claim. I thought he was trying to put one over on me, but he was right, as Turo wants the parties to work it out amongst themselves. I paid him £24 for a new mirror and was happy to put the whole thing behind me.
Do I regret hiring the car? Not at all. I faced my fear and, except for the end, had a great day. Now that I’d done it, I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. Maybe with something a little smaller, and preferably in a country that drives on the right.
I’m wondering where you got the idea that British drivers are friendly? Driving aggressively is a sport here, especially in cities.
My only recent experience of driving on ‘the other side’ of the road was in Portugal a couple of years ago and I found it surprisingly difficult to place the car, and that was a small Seat Ibiza. Don’t beat yourself up about clipping the mirror.
There have been plans to move the main road away from Stonehenge for many years, some of them involving a tunnel. But there is never a consensus or the budget to get anything done.
“National Lampoon’s European Vacation”, of course!
Back in 1967 my dad drove a left hand drive VW bus in England with confidence. I don’t know how he could do it.
The first VW van I had was a left hooker, no problem driving it in England. On narrow roads it’s easy to place close to the side of the road.
If I was driving on my own with the dog in the passenger seat I got some funny looks.
Hello, go to this website next time:
https://www.swoodoo.com/cars/LHR-a28501/2024-04-20/2024-04-21?sort=rank_a
That should give you a better deal.
Nice article Adam, and it sounds like a great trip!
I’ve never used Turo as it’s always seemed to me to be more trouble than simply renting from a traditional rental car company; but I can see how it worked well for your particular situation. At the same time, I’d probably be just too wary of the owner finding some kind of damage that I inflicted on the car…and Turo’s “work it out among yourselves” policy seems rife with the possibility for conflict. Perhaps more drama that I’d want out of my rental car experience.
I’ve not heard of a Citroen “Picasso” before. I wonder if Pablo’s estate gets royalties for Citroen’s use of the family name.
the wikipedia page for Citroen Picasso says exactly that.
“Picasso is a term that in the Citroën range from 1999 to 2018 referred to minivans and compact MPVs.
Citroën bought permission to use this name through a very strict contract.
For twenty years, there have been various vehicles bearing this name”
my 1st cousin had LHD Picasso Xsara in Finland. my recollection for riding in that older model model was – a capable small family van type vehicle.
A Picasso was the first car I ever drove on the left side of the road. But that wasn’t the first transportation option I used on my travel to England.
I was travelling (for work) with a colleague, so he decided to get the car rental that time. I trained it from Heathrow out to Somerset. After close observation, I got a car the next time, the Picasso, and never looked back.
I will admit to ensuring I got an automatic for each visit, which sometimes got me a much better car. I enjoy driving a stick as long as I am on the right side of the road.
Visiting Stonehenge was amazing. Windsor Castle too. I took lots of photos.
Picasso parked at the back of Hollies hotel.
Sounds like a great trip! We too were/are fans of both Harry Potter and Downton Abbey and I could see myself planning a trip around places where both were filmed. We have been to Stonehenge and I too was shocked at how close and visible the highway was to the historic site, but I felt the new visitors center was really well done. On that trip, we took a bus tour for sites outside London and otherwise stuck with walking tours or public transit in the city.
I had my first experience driving on the left on a different trip to Scotland. Heeding the advice of a British work colleague, I prepared by watching a drivers education video for North American drivers online to learn the differences in rules of the road. They filmed with a dash-mounted camera and talked through tricky maneuvers like entering and exiting traffic circles and making turns on one-way streets.
We rented a VW Golf at the Edinburgh airport and over the course of a week drove north to St Andrews, Cairngorms National Park and Aberdeen, and also visited the sites where the Outlander series was filmed. A one-day bus tour to Isle of Skye and Loch Ness provided an opportunity to relax and not worry about the car. Driving was nerve-wracking at first and I too hugged the left side of the road. On the open road, no problem, but city traffic was sometimes a little daunting, due to narrow streets. If it makes you feel any better, I scraped the left front wheel against high curb stones and had to pay for road rash repair upon returning the car to Avis. Anyway, the trip was otherwise uneventful and I would do it again.
In 1976 we rented a red Vauxhall (basically a UK Chevette… ugh) while in London for a week, also manual shift, no problem there, but I too was very nervous on a drive out to Meriden in Coventry to see the Triumph motorcycle factory. That drive, though a bit of a nail-biter, went fine and was well worth it.
The Triumph factory was out on strike in ’76 – very typical in those days – but as a US member of the TOMCC (Triumph Owner’s Motor Cycle Club) I had to see it. After parking and going up to a very WWII vintage looking brick office building and walking right in completely unimpeded to a seemingly empty building, we ran smack into the MD (Managing Director)! He was actually very friendly to this Yankee Trident T-150v owner and his attractive young wife (we were 25). He apologized for the lack of organized tour groups due to the strike, then he proceeded to personally give us a tour of the factory! We saw lots of partly assembled T-140 (750cc) Bonnevilles on the line (the revised T-160 Tridents were being made at Norton/Villiers/Triumph’s Small Heath (BSA) factory), and he revealed a factory mockup of the upcoming Bonneville “Special” model. It was completely unexpected and mind blowing, an amazing experience for a motorcycle nut!
Like with Adam’s family, our tour was followed by a similarly so-so lunch in a local “tea-room” in Meriden, then by a white knuckle drive back to our hotel in Kensington in London. That week we also went to a TOMCC club meeting in S London where we were warmly welcomed and again had a a wonderful time
That day in Coventry was the highlight of a month-long driving tour (mostly in a POS Simca 1300, a slug but a breeze to drive in the L hand drive countries… IF you stayed in the R lane!) of England and much of Europe and capped an unforgettable experience for us. But I wouldn’t want to duplicate that drive again at my age now!
Very enjoyable article – and thanks for your honest assessment of approaching a new driving situation. The sticky note with an arrow pointing the middle line seems like a great idea.
Should I ever travel abroad, I would absolutely have the same requirement that I’d want to rent a car model not available in the US. Turo seems like it would be good for that purpose, since you have the luxury of picking and choosing exactly what you’d want. I think the Picasso here was a good choice! Glad you all enjoyed the trip, too.
Very enjoyable piece, Adam – thank you for sharing some interesting details of your trip. I’ve been to the UK at least a dozen times but never rented or drove a car there.
Back in the day I think many of us were spooked from the news of that terrible 1987 head-on crash that killed two people when actor Matthew Broderick turned into the wrong lane and was driving on the wrong side of the road in Ireland.
Also, in those days of great train and bus service you could easily take a train or a Green Line coach to many tourist sites outside of London. I recall going to Stonehenge on a coach. But I well understand the utility and fun of renting a mini-van for your family’s outing and am glad it went well overall.
As others have said, don’t feel bad about the mirror. I recall a number of friends and former work colleagues who had similar incidents driving in the UK. One UCLA faculty member friend ripped the mirrors off both sides of a rental car going down a narrow alley. At least he and his wife were able to laugh about it upon their return.
Great article! We did a similar trip a few years ago, we were staying in London and rented a car to go to Bath, Stonehenge, and the Harry Potter studios. Had a RHD Mitsubishi SUV of some sort, kind of large for UK roads, turbodiesel with a stick shift. It was easier than I would have imagined to adapt to driving on the left and shifting with the left hand. Hardest part of it all was finding somewhere (safe for the car) to park at night in Trafalgar Square where we were staying.
Very enjoyable read Adam, thank you! We’re heading over to Europe later this year, and as a Downton fan Highclere’s on my list to visit – they’ve started making a rather delicious gin which is an added attraction! It’s been a decade since I visited Stonehenge, but I was shocked how close it was to the A303. Still one of the most wonderful places I’ve been though, the sense of history was so strong.
At home here in New Zealand, we drive on the left, so I’ve enjoyed driving in the UK, but driving in continental Europe was a fun challenge! In 2016, Friends in France’s Loire Valley run a gite (holiday homes) business, and offered us one of the gites and a car for a couple of weeks. The car turned out to be a 2010ish Renault Clio with manual transmission, and driving a LHD manual had been on my bucket list for many years, so I was delighted! It didn’t take as long as feared to master gear-changing with my wrong (right) hand, which was a great relief – although I distinctly remember the feeling of befuddlement when I once reached for the gear level with my left hand and found only a window winder… It’s certainly a challenge driving on the other side of the road to the norm, but it’s neat to master something strange yet familiar.
A most interesting tale. Personally, I must confess that when I read the original Potter to kids, I could see that the story hook was considerable, but I couldn’t for the life of me see why the writing itself was praised: and as for my maybe half-series exposure to Downton, I later found it very funny that the great Dame Maggie Smith has never actually watched it. But each to their own, of course, and Highclere is quite the pile, and I too would like to see it.
I agree with those above who reckon you shouldn’t beat yourself up about what happened. The Picasso is a biggie in Euro terms, and it’s very normal for (at minimum) mirrors to cop some dings in everyday use. I think that your manhandling of (1) a (locally) large-ish car, on (2) what was (to you) the wrong side of the road, during (3) peak hour, in (4) old London, must rank amongst the Commuting Formula One events of life, and a trivial corner clip is nowhere near a DNF, so in fact, “Well done, old chap,” I say!
As a minor digression about the “right” side for driving, I suspect that Americans may forget that the number of new cars sold worldwide each year in RHD is about 10% more than the entire US market.
I’ve never had any trouble with driving on the left,perhaps being left handed helps, along with small cars. An Austin Metro fits through almost anything. I also drive like a New Yorker. I last drove in England in 1998 and the memorable part was bombing around the Isle if Wight in a Landrover Defender 90. This sounded almost exactly like a Routemaster bus and attracted far more attention than our Ford Escort.
The Picasso and small MPVs in general always interested me since it seems the right size for a family of four. I actually owned a Mazda5 and found it was great because it had a choice of either massive luggage space or 6 seats.
Have driven in England twice:
– Peugeot 3008 (me and three others): Stonehenge, Bath, and other parts in southwest England
– Ford Mondeo (me and one other): visited relatives in Cornwall, and southwest England)
Driving on the left wasn’t so bad. The thing that saved us was buying a Euro map chip for my GPS. I had preloaded all the sites that we wanted to visit. In England, not every building has a conventional address. However, each has a unique postal code which worked perfectly!!!