The Cotswolds

I would have to say that the Cotswolds have to be, so far, the highlight of living in the United Kingdom.  It was so nice to get out of the city and drive amidst the beautiful scenery.  Literally just around every corner was a new beautiful sight with all the rolling hills and shrub lined fencing.  Ah, our ideal home surroundings!  We would actually love to own a "plantation" of sorts some day, one with a tree-lined entrance and lots of rolling hills and there must be some kind of water!  We dream, we dream.

We spent three wonderful days in the Cotswolds pretty much driving through and exploring every little town in the area.  We stayed in Chipping Campden, which was a cool little town, at the Noel Arms Hotel.  I definitely recommend this hotel for any potential future visitors, although we might stay in Stow-on-the-Wold if we go back, considering we drove through there about 5 times getting to other places.  While in the Cotswolds we visited Chipping Campden, Stow-on-the-Wold, Broadway, Upper and Lower Slaughter, Moreton-in-Marsh, Bibury, Chipping Norton, Bourton-on-the-Water, and Burford.  Bourton-on-the-Water was hands down our favorite Cotswold town and you will see below as to why.

Noel Arms Hotel in Chipping Campden

Cool hotel in Stow-on-the-Wold

Town square of Stow-on-the-Wold with the church in the center.

The Royalist Hotel, UK's longest running inn, circa 947 AD.

Ah, beautiful!

Burford

These don't look too sturdy to me, lol!

Most towns in the Cotswolds have a Sheep Street due to the sell of wool that has made these towns so prosperous.

The roof on the building where we had lunch.  I know, weird, but who knows how old this is??  We should seriously figure out how to get a roof on our homes in the US that last for a very, very long time.

The Priory in Burford where we had lunch.

On the outskirts of Burford.  Not sure what the place is on the left but it is very cool.

Upper Slaughter Manor

A lot of our driving in the Cotswolds was done on one lane roads.  That can be a little scary!

Cool hotel in Bibury!

Lygon Hotel in Broadway

Chris and Reed at a park in Broadway where we decided to let Reed have some play time, unfortunately it started thundering and lightning five minutes after we got there.  This was the first time we had heard thunder since arriving in the UK, kind of weird to think about.

Sheep, sheep and more sheep everywhere throughout the Cotswolds.

Cool house with a thatched roof!

Ah, Bourton-on-the-Water!  Water gets us every time.

Playing with bubbles in the park.

Cheese!

Our view from dinner at a restaurant in Bourton-on-the-Water.

And the place where we had dinner.

So pretty!  We definitely want to come back here!

The day before when we drove through this place was packed with people playing and wading in the water.  It was a lot warmer the day before!

I'll take this house please!

This market in Chipping Campden was built in 1627 for the sell of local produce.

Interior of the market.

Chipping Campden

Church in Chipping Campden

Whoa, that was a lot of photos and there are certainly more where these came from.  If you are interested in flipping through all of them, just click on one of the pictures above to go to our Cotswold album!

On a side note, the yellow flowers that I mentioned in my Stonehenge post are actually rapeseed which is used to make canola oil.  Thanks Alisa for the info!!