The Cotswolds

Yesterday I enjoyed a girls day out with a trip into the English Cotswolds. Since it's a long holiday weekend, Bettina and I talked about a girls day out in her car. We invited Gina too, since she is leaving the UK soon and still has lots to see before she goes. It wasn't exactly warm and super sunny, but it wasn't cold and rainy either. In fact, the sun did peak out throughout the day and we kept on the move to keep warm.


The Cotswolds is an area not far from Oxford, where it's a large cluster of towns and small villages with a certain type of architecture and stone used for their homes. I believe it's a type of sandstone that they call Cotswold stone and makes this beautiful honey color. Many of the homes also still have the traditional thatched roofs. This time of year especially is beautiful in the villages with all of the blossoms, lilacs, wisteria, tulips etc.

We started off with a stop in the town called Morton-in-Marsh and had a little stroll. We had coffee and breakfast at one of the Tea Rooms and luckily they had a table in the back garden in the sun. Lovely!

Next was the most picturesque town in the Cotswolds - Chipping Campden. Chipping means "Market" in Old English. So there are other "Chipping" towns in England - Chipping Norton for example. Here we walked along the gorgeous buildings, around the church yard, the Old Market Stall, into some shops and then another Tea Room/Eatery for lunch. Since it was Sunday, the proper English thing to do is have Sunday Roast. Usually it's served between 12-3 in the pubs. I ordered the beef roast and Gina the lamb. It includes a nice slab of your choice of meat, roasted potatoes, yorkshire pudding (which is a savory fried bread), gravy, roasted parsnips (yum!) and steamed (or roasted) veggies. I thought there was no way I would eat it all, and of course I did! In more than two years living here - I've never had Sunday roast since the hubby isn't too fond of that!

Our last stop was Bourton-on-the-Water, which I've been to before. It's very small, but very quaint and cute. There is a large square, where a large creek runs through the middle and little bridges cross over from each side. We also visited the model village of the village, which was pretty funny. Gina got some shopping in for gifts before she leaves and I considered some Cotswold cream ice cream, but was still too full!

We drove home on some back roads, where you can really get a sense of the English countryside. It's absolutely beautiful - especially right now with all of the green grass, little lambs and yellow rapeseed growing everywhere. This is when I miss having a car, so you can get out in the open space and drive around. I was living in Iowa and Oregon for goodness sake with all of that gorgeous and spacious farmland and greenery!

I also realized that in England, one must be well off to be able to live in the country. You would need a car, and to own that much land and a stand alone home, it costs a lot of money. And I couldn't imagine the heating and maintenance bills on those gorgeous, but really old and cold stone homes!