"A lot of our guests are families who have done the resort holidays and are tired of the artificial environment," says Richard Day, head of holidays for the National Trust, adding that about 5 percent of their bookings come from Americans. "You can choose to explore any part of England from the Cotswolds to the Lake District to the coast and actually stay in a piece of history. It is a total break from the modern world." (Of course, most trust properties have modern conveniences, from microwaves to VCRs, soon to be replaced by DVD players.)
"A National Trust vacation is probably not for everyone," said Antoine Bourbon-Parme, a New Yorker who has stayed in nearly two dozen trust properties over the last decade. "Don't expect to be able to find an open restaurant on Sunday evening in your local village or very wide roads. But do expect to have a wonderful time in a beautiful house and commune with nature."
In fact, though we had rented various period-piece videos for our evening's entertainment (Emma, Pride and Prejudice and Howards End to name a few), we were hard pressed to get the children indoors for even one movie night. Instead they would appear briefly for dinner (my mother unwittingly began cooking turn-of-the-century British food -- roasting huge cuts of meat, mashing boiled root vegetables and stewing fruit) and then go back out to continue their imaginary games.
Five days into the week, we were proudly visiting our seventh National Trust stately home (Clandon Park, famous for once being the home of the Onslow family, which during the late 17th and 18th century provided the House of Commons with three people who held the title of speaker), when my eldest daughter turned to her grandmother and said, "I have National Trust Syndrome." Her two siblings nodded their weary heads in agreement. "All these houses are starting to look alike to us," she said, crumpling up her latest quiz and throwing it at her brother, who folded his into a paper airplane and sent it down a three-story staircase. It was a miracle that it had not happened sooner.
RSS