This article caught my eye:
A Cotswolds village dubbed ‘the most beautiful in the world’ has seen a 2,000 per cent rise in parking fines – as locals complain the area has become overrun by tourists.
Residents in Bibury, famous for its 14th-century honey-coloured stone cottages, are reporting ‘major problems’, with figures showing parking wardens dished out 651 notices in the village last year – up from 28 in 2019. This compares to the 28 fines given in 2019 generating £1,900.
Community representative Craig Chapman said many visitors showed ‘very little regard for villagers’ – parking wherever they can, even if this meant blocking pavements or stopping on double yellow lines.
I can see why. I’ve been to Bibury, and it’s as beautiful as it’s painted:
However, if you turn around and face in the other direction:
I had a similar experience when I went to Cheddar, in Somerset:
And that’s just the approach to the village. Inside Cheddar itself, it was pandemonium — no parking anywhere to be found, the sidewalks dense with people, and I left very quickly.
Here’s the dirty little secret about touring the U.K.
Most of the places you find in the tourist guides are exactly like the above: overcrowded, and worst of all, no parking. The average commuter train station on Chicago’s Northwest Line has twice as much parking as an entire town in Britishland.
Even Marlborough — one of my favorite towns Over There — barely manages to get by, and that only by creating a car park in the town square during the week.
If there’s a market taking place, the center parking lot is taken up by stalls, and you end up parking at least two miles away, having to risk your life along one of those notorious “two-lane” (actually, one and a half lanes) with no room for pedestrians. (A narrow grassy verge, often sloped, with a dense hedge on one side and cars whizzing by on the other, is the rule.)
My advice is to skip any of the so-called scenic places you might find advertised, and just drive along random country roads until you happen upon somewhere like Burton:
(not Burton-On-Trent, which while beautiful, is best accessed by parachute).
And if it’s at all possible, try to avoid visiting Britishland during summer, because the entire country’s population (and millions of furriners) choose that period to tour the tiny country, with results as at the top.
I’ve been Over There on many occasions, during every season, and take it from me, autumn — chilly, rainy and kinda bleak in late October through early December — is the best time to go.
Here’s Thirsk, up in t’north during October:
Mostly, it’s just locals and not too many of those.
I can’t wait to get back.