The Cotswolds. London's weekend, ninety minutes up the A40.

Almost every Cotswolds journey from London is the same for the first hour: out west on the A40 and the M40, off at Oxford or Chipping Norton, and then onto B roads that narrow fast. The first hour is predictable. The last twenty minutes are not, and they are where the time is lost.

Friday afternoons westbound and Sunday afternoons eastbound are the two reliably bad windows, and in summer the roads around Burford, Stow and Bourton fill with day traffic. Leaving an hour earlier on a Friday is usually worth more than any clever route.

These are our own cars and our own chauffeurs, driving out from London. There is no local handover and no unfamiliar driver meeting you at a service station.

For private aircraft the Cotswolds airfield is London Oxford Airport at Kidlington, just north of Oxford and about forty miles north west of central London. It has its own private terminal with customs and immigration, and from there it is ten to fifteen minutes to Woodstock, roughly half an hour to Great Tew and about forty-five minutes to the Kingham and Stow side. Opening hours run from early morning to late evening rather than around the clock.

Its runway is a little over fifteen hundred metres, which suits light and midsize aircraft comfortably. Larger aircraft, and anything arriving overnight, go to Luton or Farnborough instead, both of which are under two hours away by road. We will tell you honestly which combination gets you to the house soonest, and it is not always the nearest airfield.

If you are flying privately, our chauffeur meets the aircraft rather than the terminal door, where the handling agent permits it. See private jet and FBO transfers.

Most of the difficulty here is at the end. Estate entrances are often unmarked, or marked with something you cannot read at night. Gates need the guest name given in advance. Drives are long, gravelled and single width with passing places. Mobile signal disappears in the valleys, so a chauffeur who leaves the confirmation call until the last mile will not get through.

Our chauffeurs confirm the exact entrance, the gate arrangements and the meeting point before leaving London, not on arrival. For a house you use often, that only has to happen once.