The Cotswolds is an area in England between Gloucester and Stratford upon Avon where the towns and villages are especially quaint (I might overuse this word) with their thatched roofs and sandstone walls and beautiful gardens and ...
We started in the city of Stratford where everything is Shakespeare from his birthplace to his school to his grave (Holy Trinity Church) to his wife's home (Anne Hathaway's cottage), etc. There are plenty of acting troupes and boats on the Avon but we were looking forward to the 'quaint' (should get a thesaurus) part of our trip.
Driving through the English countryside is every bit as beautiful as it is nervewracking. We dove down steep narrow windy streets where farm tractors and tour buses were our constant adversary. But it was worth it as we pulled into one (insert adjective) village after another. We couldn't stop walking up and down the streets in each village. Chipping Camden had the most thatched houses (and incredible hedges) although we did notice that many homes weren't on the tiny side of 'quaint'. Blockley is the setting for Father Brown, a British mystery series (sometimes we feel like we are on Elaine's BBC Masterpiece Theatre tour). Finally we had a pub supper in the tiny hamlet of Snowshill before driving back home to Gloucester via Morton-in-Marsh. And that was just our first day.
Our second day of touring cutely named villages started with Stow-in-the-Wold before we headed off to Lower Slaughter and hiked up to Upper Slaughter (where else). Since the whole country was celebrating the last Bank holiday of the summer (long weekend), it was getting just too crowded so after a quick visit to Burton on the Water, we had to say good-bye to this ______ part of the country. If the wonderful names don't entice you to visit this region, then hopefully these pictures will.
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