After a touristy but relaxing visit in Bath, we rented a car and took off on the left hand side of the road, for the Cotswolds. On our way we took a detour to visit Oxford. This was a very quick, like a couple of hours, little visit. We enjoy visiting prestigious campuses around the world. I think we always leave a little bit more enlightened.
Anyone get Harry Potter vibes from these pictures? Yeah, me too! This hall and dining room inspired the set for the movies.
The Cotswolds, or the English countryside, is much more our style though. On this specific road trip we stayed in 2 towns;
Chipping Campden and
Stow-on-the-Wold
Both are charming, quaint little English towns. You can easily visit both or pick and choose the vibe you want before heading to the big city of London.
Chipping Campden
This town, like most towns in this area, is known for sheep. The main site to visit is the market hall which is located on Main Street, you literally cannot miss it. While it no longer houses the market or sheep auctions it does show off the local graffiti artists work.
Thatched roofs are common in the Cotswolds, especially Chipping Campden.
Chipping Campden is not a touristy town, so we loved it. The B&B we stayed at was family run and consisted of beds, bar and restaurant, including a super cute outdoor patio that we never got to use due to the high volumes of rain England is known for.
We did take a stroll along the back alleys of town and ended up walking through a sheep pasture. I am not sure what the sheep population is in the Cotswolds (it has significantly decreased over generations) but you will be hard pressed to go anywhere without seeing herds of them in fields, side of the road, etc. I must say the locals are very friendly....Baaa.
Stow-On-The-Wold
Stow was much busier and more touristy than Chipping Campden. But that does not mean you are surrounded by tourists. Once we checked into our B&B I don't think we saw another tourist. This is likely because we seek out the locals, doing local things.
Story time...Parking is hard to find in Stow. So Jeff dropped me off at the B&B and continued to drive around looking for a place to park. I went into the cottage and waited and waited and waited. No one came, so I gave a polite holler "Hello". No answer. So of course I did what any self respecting Westerner would do and I went searching in the cottage for someone who worked there. I made it upstairs and found the owner making the beds. He was not impressed to see me standing there. He reminded me of our check in time and said we would have to wait. We left our bags in his living room (did I mention this is his house? He rents out 2 or 3 rooms upstairs); and sat in the car and waited to be checked in.
Once we had a place to store our bags we left on our hike. Now according to the Rick Steve's Guide Book the hike we were doing should have taken us 6 or so hours; We walked from Stow to Bourton on the Water. For Jeff and I however it took maybe 3 hours. That is including all of our stops and walking through mostly rain...and getting lost and helped by a farmer and his lovely dog Pip. *In England you are free to walk trails that cross all sorts of properties. We walked along driveways, fields through the middle of farms, trees and the road.
You will come across many different types of gates on your journey as well. These are meant to keep animals where they belong, so don't be shy when you reach one. Just open, or climb, or squeeze through the gate, just be sure to also close it. The gates were a fun addition to our site seeing on this hike.
Remember when I said England gets a lot of rain? Well it rained for most of this hike and even when it wasn't raining the ground was soaked from earlier. I highly suggest you come prepared for this so you do not have to miss out on the experience. "No bad weather, just inappropriate clothing" - Rick Steves.
We tend to travel on the shoulder season so when we strolled into Bourton on the Water in late afternoon, everything was closing down. On our way there we of course stopped at some pubs for a pub beverage, so naturally, we had to do what comes...well naturally. We searched the town for an open restaurant or coffee shop, nothing to be found. We also knew we had to find a way back home. It was a time crunch indeed! On the other end of town we found a café still open (at least that is what the sign said) so we entered and to be polite Jeff ordered food while I headed to the washroom. We were stopped, by a rather disgruntled worker, and told that the cash register was not working and they were no longer selling items. We said that was fine we just needed to use the washroom. They then, grumpily, said if we were using the washroom we had to order something. So we each got a little pastry that happened to be left over and handed over way too much cash. We then sat down to eat it, which apparently was extremely rude as the man working told us to leave. We ate quickly, we still had to find a way home after-all, and left waving goodbye. To end our visit at Bourton we ran after the last bus to leave town and still ended up having to walk several KMs into Stow. This may sound like we had a terrible experience, but that could not be further from the truth. This whole thing was a highlight on this trip. We live for this type of unknown, figure it out as you go travel. And let me tell you, even when it seems like you will have to sleep on the street, something always works out.
Back in Stow we changed out of our soaking wet clothes and found a place for dinner. I believe the restaurant was called Queens Head, although I could be mistaken. What I know for sure is this was the best meal I had during our whole England adventure. After dinner we cozied up to the bar to join the locals and their dogs (dogs are welcome in most pubs in England). We sat there all night. The men around the bar were full of questions for us young Canadians. And wouldn't you know it the grumpy B&B owner was sitting right beside me. He turned out to be a wonderful man, with a lovely dog. We learned that the B&B was his and his wife's but that she had been diagnosed with cancer and was not doing well. He told us about their children and living in Stow. We laughed a lot, and made a group of new friends. We have never been back to Stow since this visit but if we do we will certainly look them up.
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