Toward the end of our time in London, we took a brief detour to the countryside and spent time in the
Cotswolds, Bath and Stonehenge. After picking up our rental car and a few wrong turns along the way, we stopped in
Bibury. We walked around the most famous section, Arlington Row and spent some time on the bridge overlooking the trout stream. Then, we headed to lunch at the only sit-down restaurant in the village, the
Swan Hotel.
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| Arlington Row, Bibury |
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| Bourton-on-the-Water |
Next, we traveled to
Bourton-on-the-Water, which is often referred to as the "Venice of the Cotswolds" because a river runs right through the town center. It was a really beautiful setting with people and dogs relaxing on park benches adjacent to the river. Bourton-on-the-Water was much more developed than Bibury and we were able to poke around in a few shops. I discovered candy shops that made me realize the English are as, if not more, obsessed with licorice candy as I am. Wow!
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| Lower Slaughter |
Then, we meandered over to the
Slaughters. Lower Slaughter may have been my favorite stop during our tour of the Cotswolds. It was so quiet, serene and well-preserved that you can't even imagine real people live there! Upper Slaughter, on the other hand, wasn't much to speak of...hilly, residential and difficult to navigate.
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| Chipping Campden |
We reached
Chipping Campden in time for the sunset, but this unfortunately meant that most of the boutiques were closing. We still managed to get some gorgeous shots of an old historic church. By that time, Jim and I were pretty wiped out and decided to scrap a couple of other destinations in favor of heading to Broadway and checking into our hotel.
We stayed in a refurbished medieval guest house and it was, in a word, AMAZING! It is called
Abbott's Grange and had the most magnificent great hall/family room with fireplace. We were pampered the minute we arrived with offers of scotch, port wine and chocolate. Somehow we still managed to make it out for dinner and a stroll around Broadway. It was wonderful to walk around after all the tour buses had departed for the day because we were able to get more of a local feel. We had dinner that night at (surprise) another pub, called the Crown and Trumpet. After the best night of sleep I'd had in awhile, we enjoyed a traditional English breakfast. There was more food than I usually have for breakfast and lunch combined!
After breakfast and saying our goodbyes, we traveled about 2 hours southwest to Bath. As some of you know, I was obsessed with the HBO show
Rome and hooked Jim when I bought him the DVDs last Christmas. In addition to seeing the baths and learning about the construction, we were introduced to a lot of information regarding the ancient civilizations. The architecture was absolutely gorgeous! I probably could've spent an entire day there. The city of Bath reminded me of a larger scale version of Saratoga...very clean and beautiful with shops and restaurants everywhere you turned. Jim and I wish we had been able to stay overnight in Bath, so that we could've explored more of the city. Maybe next time!
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| Me at the Roman Baths |
Our final stop before returning to London was Stonehenge. At this point, we were really pressed for time and didn't take advantage of the audio tour. Instead, we rushed up the hill to see the monuments and snapped a few pictures. It was ridiculously windy up there! I couldn't believe how close we were able to get...there was only a small rope between spectators and the rocks. Surprisingly, it wasn't as massive as I imagined based on pictures I've seen. Nevertheless, I cannot comprehend how humans living in 2500 BC managed to erect such a structure without modern tools and equipment...truly amazing!
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| Stonehenge |
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