The Cotswolds

Decided to stop another night here and explore the area. Chipping Campden was just gorgeous, picture postcard pretty with very old stone buildings and cobbled streets - and the contrast of loads of cars parked along the street - it felt like it should have been horses and carriages!




On the subject of cars, two comments. I wondered why some cars had white number plates, and some yellow until I realised that they all have white on the front, and yellow on the back!. There is no rule to say which side of the road you can park on, so you will have cars pointing any which way on both sides of the street.

We checked out Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford on Avon, and his wife, Anne Hathaway’s cottage. The latter was made especially interesting by two fascinating guides who brought the history to life and gave us background to lots of sayings we use today. For example, in those times, it was ok for a man to beat his wife, as long as the stick was skinnier than his thumb, hence the expression ‘under the thumb‘!


Saw lots of little country towns with names like Upper and Lower Slaughter and Bourton-on-the-Water, but Chipping Campden was our favourite.


Had dinner in a country pub and then home to bed.

Photo of our car as requested by Ash:

Checking out

We carefully planned our journey to pick up the rental car from Hertz in Fulham on Friday. It was out of the congestion zone so we knew we had a wee way to go. Surprisingly, since we haven’t bought much, our suitcases were fit to bust! We took the Tube to the closest station, but we under-estimated the distance to the rental car office - a half hour walk, dragging our cases behind us - phew! Picked up a cute little Kia, pretty peppy, and we were off to Windsor Castle.


I know I keep going on about the castles we are seeing, but they are all different and amazing. This was the grandest and interesting because HM was in residence. It was the day of the christening of Edward and Sophie’s baby at the Chapel there so the whole family was there, and I thought we might get a glimpse, but no such luck.


We ambled through the countryside, thankful for the GPS, looking for a B&B. Proved to be more of a mission than we expected, but finally bought a book and chose one in a place called Weston-sub-Edge near Chipping Campden.


It was a farm, built in 1624 - but beautifully restored and very comfortable. The hostess knows NZ well and her family were into rugby so it was a nice connection.