Since I can remember, the concept
of a weekend away at a friend’s house
in the country has had immense
charm—the romanticism of arriving
by train, passing rolling hills and
trickling brooks to eventually be
collected and ensconced in a private
estate, sheltered from the realities
of the outside world. Along the way, this was reinforced by fi lms such as Brideshead Revisited and Peter’s Friends but the reality of a stately escape was not so easy to realise. The irony of it all was that I actually lived in the country so a weekend away to the country seemeda little pointless.
Escaping the madness of the city has
historically been seen as de rigueur. But with
the availability of cheap travel, visiting the
country fell out of fashion; however, luckily for
an old romantic, this seems to be changing and
country sojourns are once again trending.
If you want to truly experience the traditional
country escape, you need a friend with a stately
home—think Downton Abbey. Nowadays, most
of these places are unviable to run as homes and
are fast getting converted into cookie-cutter
hotels with a veneer of history to make them
respectable. So discovering a place that doesn’t
feel like a hotel but more like a friend’s retreat is
nigh on impossible, I thought.
Then to my delight, we discovered the muchtalked-about Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons
outside Oxford this summer. Exiting the
motorway for Oxford City Centre always feels
slightly anticlimactic as you pass row upon row
of unassuming and uninspiring houses. As you
get closer to Oxford, the architecture begins to
hint at the cornucopia of styles that stamp their
personality onto the city. The mishmash of
periods is what gives Oxford its charm.
The most glorious elements of Oxford are
about Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons
outside Oxford this summer. Exiting the
motorway for Oxford City Centre always feels
slightly anticlimactic as you pass row upon row
of unassuming and uninspiring houses. As you
get closer to Oxford, the architecture begins to
hint at the cornucopia of styles that stamp their
personality onto the city. The mishmash of
periods is what gives Oxford its charm.
Read more > Escape To The Countryside
No comments:
Post a Comment