Anyway, SP and I visited Cotswold on our first trip to England enjoyed it very much. It is a relaxing place, with picturesque cottages, gentle hills, valleys and rivers. According to Wiki, "The Cotswolds lie within the current ceremonial counties of Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire. The county of Gloucestershire forms the largest area of the Cotswolds." and it is only a 2-hours drive away from London.
Map of Cotswold (Source: http://www.cotswoldreview.co.uk/images/Cotswold%20Map_36.jpg)
My parent's flight arrived on Saturday afternoon so we need to head straight to Cotswold as soon as we've dropped off Valerie and the luggage at my place. For those who don't know my parents, they treasure every opportunity to travel so jet lag was not a concern to them and this is not case of 'parent-abuse'!
After a few hours in the London and Oxford traffic, we arrived at our B&B at around 8:30pm. The property is a sweet place. We didn't get a room in the cottage as we booked too late. But we had a cabin all to ourselves and it was not too bad.
It was quite late and most places have stopped serving food. We went into the village and a restaurant was kind enough was kind enough to accommodate us. We had a nice dinner. The gents had a nice piece of beef. My mother has a yummy fish dish and my duck dish was also very tasty. With our tummies filled, we returned to the B&B and had a good (not-so-good for some!) night sleep.
Next day, we started our visit at Bourton-on-the-Water. It is one of the prettiest villages in the Cotswold...
My parents and I on the bridge. The sky is still greyish in the morning.
We had a good walk around the village and visited the monthly farmers' market. Not much there we can buy though coz it's all food. We did manage to get some really yummy apple and mango juice though.
Later in the day, the sky started to clear up and we ventured into the nearby villages.
Slaughter (I can't remember whether it's Upper-Slaughter or Lower-Slaughter)
There is a really nice ice-cream bar in this village. (Again, I can't remember whether it's Upper-Slaughter or Lower-Slaughter). The special of the day was blackberry and apple-crumble ice-cream. Very tasty!
Nevertheless, I can somehow sense that my parents are getting bored walking around. When you are visiting villages like those in Cotswold, there is usually no defined itinerary and certainly no 'sights' or landmark per se. Therefore, we decided to find a landmark which looks special. We saw a picture of the Broadway Tower earlier in the morning so we thought we would go there via Stow-on-the-Wold.
Stow-on-the-Wold is where we stayed last time. It was a small village with a good pub at the Royalist Hotel. The brasserie of the hotel was also excellent. We intended to visit it again for that night. However, in the morning, our fellow B&Bers claimed that the food for this particular weekend was awful and his wife had to send the food back. They also had a positive dining experience last time they visited. So, we decided to stay away from the brasserie this time and asked our host to recommend a different restaurant. More on that later. Anyway, this time, when drove past Stow-on-the-Wold, we found that it has become much more commercialised. They even built a giant Tesco complex just outside the Town Centre. It was a bit disappointing. Even though the Tesco is built in a country house-style (a giant country-house, I must add), it has truly damaged the fairy-tale like beauty of the village.
Broadway Tower, at 1024 feet (312m) above sea level, is the second highest point on the Cotswold region. You can, apparently, see across the Severn Valley and as far as the Welsh Mountains on a clear day, .
SP and I at the Broadway Towers
That evening, we went to the restaurant at the Mousetrap Inn as recommended by our host. Our entrees were all yummy. Unfortunately, everyone except me had wonderful main course. My Wild Mushroom Risotto turned out to be more risotto than mushrooms (I can't even see the mushrooms!). And I can barely taste any flavour in my dish. For the rest of the night, I was thinking , "The lamb that the lady on the next table ordered looked very yummy. I should have ordered lamb" O well :(
For the next day, we know we have to move quickly out of the villages to avoid more boredom on my parents' side. So we quickly visited the Arlington Row at Bibury.
Picture at Bibury. Sorry, I didn't pick our picture of the Arlington Row.
On the way back to the car, we took a different route and saw an old lady feeding the ducks by the river. We stopped and had a chat to her. Then she offered us bread for feeding. She got ten loaves of bread to feed them (the bread look new to me)!
Some ducks jumped up and took food straight from my hands!
But some of the smarter ones seem to be able to sense that I ate one of their fellow members just two days ago! I love ducks. Both alive and on a plate :)
After Bibury, we left the Cotswold region to search for real 'sight'..........
(to be continued)
More information:
Whiteshoots Cottage - Our B&B
http://www.whiteshoots.co.uk/
Eagle and Child, the brasserie at the Royalist Hotel
http://www.theroyalisthotel.com/hotel-eagle.htm
Broadway Tower
http://www.broadwaytower.co.uk/
Mousetrap Inn
http://www.mousetrap-inn.co.uk
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