The Cotswolds

April 24, 2010

Saturday late afternoon

We are back on the train towards London.  Had  a great time in Broadway, a small village in the English countryside.  People keep telling us to get out of London in order to see “real” England…so our improvisation after our trip to Italy was cancelled worked out well.  Our B&B was cheap, clean and adorable.  The couple running it had been American School teachers from London who got tired of city life and moved out to the countryside just a little over a year ago.  They grow their own fruits and vegetables, can and sell all their organic creations, serve an incredible traditional breakfast and were very helpful suggesting how we should spend our day.

We slept in until almost 9:00, quite a luxury since we have been going to bed at midnight and getting up at 6am pretty regularly.  We took our time getting ready and then had breakfast in the dining room for over an hour.  We then packed our little backpack with our books and set off on a walk into the village, which was about 10 minutes away.  We stopped in a few of the little shops and admired all the beautiful houses and gardens.

We then proceeded to walk a 2 mile path up to Broadway Tower, a “follie” (apparently the Brits are know for building beautiful structures that are of no real significance in order to have a view of a pretty castle, as an example) at the top of rolling hills primarily used as sheep, horse and goat grazing.  I loved the sheep.

It was a beautiful (and challenging) hike and the views from the tower were absolutely stunning.

We walked back down, then meandered through town, grabbed a coffee and decided to grab a 3:30 train back to the city so we could have a picnic dinner in our own garden and watch a movie on the sofa (some things never change!). J

Seeing the countryside was great and I think we’ll both look forward to exploring other areas of it as well.  The ability to do overnight trips like this is really cool, and it feels like a mini vacation even though it’s only for a night.  I read Pillars of the Earth right before we moved to London and I keep reminiscing about the stories and thinking about the history of the area.  Imagining the kings, priors, monks, peasants, herders and knights is easy when you’re here walking by buildings from the 1400’s.  Seeing the monasteries, churches, castles, streets and fields that these types of people spent their days in is awesome.

The gardens that we saw have inspired me to get some flowers planted and we really want tomatoes so tomorrow may be a day of gardening.  It was a great trip and another wonderfully fun experience together.

Love,

Jeri Jo