The Beautiful Cotswolds

I saved the best for last for our England trip! For me, anyway.  There is a little area North of Bristol and West of Oxford called the "Cotswolds" which I somehow heard about years ago.  I really don't know how I heard of this, it easily could have been from my grandpa or just from coming across pictures somewhere, but I always wanted to go. This is hands down one of the most beautiful places I've been!  I've realized that I'm not so much of a big city girl, and I absolutely love this little area of English countryside.  This is real England, people.  Doesn't get much more real than this.  Most of the buildings are from the 17th century, including the Unicorn Hotel where we stayed.  This area was built on the wool business, which is why you'll be seeing some sheep here in a minute.  Now this whole area is filled with huge homes and manors, mostly owned by rich people and celebrities, such as Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant.  If I were famous, this is the first place I'd hideaway. 

The towns we visited are : 

Bibury

Bourton-on-the-Water

Stow-on-the-Wold (where we stayed)

Upper & Lower Slaughter

Stanway

Broadway

Snowshill 

Chipping Campden

There's not really much to do in the Cotswolds, except for just kind of hang out, drive around, and soak up the beautiful scenery.  We picked a perfect time to go, since all the leaves were changing.  I of course wouldn't have made it without my trusty driver, who handled himself very well driving on the other side of the road!  I drove for about 20 minutes, and then pulled over before we hit the next roundabout, which would have been wayy too much to handle. 

We drove up from Bristol on Sunday, taking a little detour through South Wales and going up the coast, called the Severn.  We took a quick stop in a town called Chepstow, pretty much just so we could say we've been to Wales.

We visited Bourton-on-the-Water on Sunday afternoon, which was so pretty, and then headed up the Stow to check into our hotel.  I at first was going to stay in a hostel, but once I realized I was the ONLY person staying in a 400 year old house, I switched to my Dad's hotel on the second night. On Sunday night, we had to get our "Sunday Roast" which is a delicious meal usually consisting of a cut of roast beef, roast potatoes (or "chips" aka fries), vegetables, gravy and a roll.  We were lucky to find a great restaurant, the King's Arms, to get our roast. We liked it so much that we went back again on the second night in Stow!  

On Monday we visited pretty much every other town in the Cotswolds, took a little walk from Lower Slaughter to Upper Slaughter (well one of us walked, possibly the one that's 30 years younger), drove through Stanway and Snowshill, walked around in the little shopping town called Broadway, and ended the day in Chipping Campden, which was another old market town.  I loved every minute of it, but I have to admit that after a while they all kind of look the same.  I did however take about 200 pictures this day! 

After our King's Arms pub meal #2, we took a quick stop to the local grocery store to buy out their Cadbury chocolates, and called it a night.  

The next day we got up and headed back to Bourton-on-the-Water, because the car museum there had caught my Dad's attention.  We visited the museum, hung out, and had our last English meal together at a little tea room!  I really enjoyed English food, in spite of the fact that they stereotypically have bad food.  Compared to France, it seemed much more hearty and maybe a little bit American to me, which is probably why I loved it.  After that we drove back to Bristol, gave back our car DENT free, which was unexpected, and Dad headed back to London!

We really had a great trip, the more I think about it and the more I look at the pictures the more I'd really love to go back to England again one day!  Everyone was extremely friendly and nice, and we saw some beautiful places!  Thanks for coming to visit Dad, and thank you to my friend Samir for being such a great host :)

Bibury, Arlington Row

Bourton-on-the-Water

Lower Slaughter

hanging out with some sheep on my walk

upper Slaughter

Snowshill

Chipping Campden

Old taxi in the car museum