The Cotswolds (A green escape from the city)

Maria’s view

England reminds me of home, Asturias, just in case you haven’t read previous posts, it is a region in the Northwest coast of Spain and both places have a lot of resemblances. The vibrant green of the fields, the farms, rainy weather, small villages, etc…
I am talking, obviously about the countryside of England, because I live in London which has nothing in common with my place of birth.

So, to disconnect from the big city, there is nothing like exploring the countryside of England. Alex, as a crazy Italian driver, loves taking her convertible through the secondary roads to contemplate the beautiful scenery.

One of the places worth a visit are The Cotswolds, which covers a big area in the Southwest of England and run through five counties. You will find small villages with a unique honey colour stone, all the buildings look exactly the same due to this unique colour, very beautiful (same building uniformity you can also find it in the city of Bath). The villages are surrounded by green hills which makes the place interesting to go for a hike or just a relaxing walk.

Alex and I, decided to spend a weekend in a very pretty hotel, we will talk about it on the next post, near Broadway village.

Hey, hold on a minute. I have just forgotten to mention that for most of non-native English speakers, trying to pronounce “The Cotswolds” properly is a nightmare. Alex is still laughing at me every time I try to give it a go, but different sounds come from my mouth and not the right ones “The Coustwoulds”, “The Coastwuuols”, etc…

Anyway, we decided to go for a walk and take some pictures of nature. So we went through a forest with lots of trees, then we followed a path crossing different fields where we could interact with the animals we found, especially sheep, a lot of them.
Everything was very green and plenty of fresh air, what else could you ask for?.

At the end of the path we reached Broadway Tower, it sounds like a glamorous place but in this Broadway it is unlikely that you will find a movie star or celebrity.
Broadway Tower is situated at the top of Broadway Hill (very intuitive names) and it is 20 metres high. It has the same distinctive honey stone colour as the rest of the buildings in The Cotswolds, it is quite pretty.

If you fancy a bit of architectural design, you can go through the small villages and have a glance at the Tudor style cottages. As they all have the same colour, this is a big issue for my lack of orientation. I am not sure how I will manage if I had to live in there.

On the way back, we decided to enjoy the scenery and go for a long ride. On the way we would visit Chastleton House which belongs to the National Trust (independent charity and membership organisation for environmental and heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland).
We were so happy enjoying the drive especially because it was a nice, warm day and you could look up and see the blue sky.
The only thing that spoilt our joy, it was that when we reached Chastleton House it was closed and we couldn’t visit it.
Anyway, there is always an excuse to come back to this part of England to continue enjoying nature.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Alex’s view

Firstly, I am not a crazy driver, in fact, if you have read any of the other posts, I think we are agreed, that I am the sane of the two. Therefore, we can leave all vocabulary which depicts the variances of “crazy”, firmly at Maria’s door. Perhaps it is an Asturian thing, caused by the horrendous cheese, whose name I cannot even envisage without utter horror attaching my taste buds. In fact, I am pretty sure it is the cheese. The chemical reaction must impact the brain adversely.

For the rest, it is all true. Sounds were most definitely emanating from Maria’s mouth which is nothing new, and usually denotes her attempts at “singing”. In this occasion, on closer scrutiny, I established she was attempting to pronounce Cotswalds. The hilarity this caused was most undignified, I will admit, but inevitable. It continues to do so, every time I think about it. It was not just the sounds, you understand, it was also the facial workout and consequent exclamations of frustration that followed. Basically a standup comedy show, in and of itself.

May I relieve your suspense further and confirm that it is true. The forest had trees. I know this is most unusual but I will attest freely to this fact, and I also wanted to put your mind at rest on her interaction with sheep. No sheep were harmed… well, excepting their and indeed my ears. She was infact, attempting to communicate with them in their native tongue. Beeeeeehhhhhh BEeeehhhhhhhhh (Spanish) but the sheep were English and expected BAAAA BAAAA. Other tourists found it as disturbing as you might be thinking it was. So did the sheep. I just sported my usual resigned face, interspersed with understanding smiles to passers by and lashings of hilarity. I should have sold popcorn, with the audience we had gathered. Maria also attempted a conversation with two very large New Foundlands. They merely looked at her with a puzzled frown and refrained from commenting. I am talking about the dogs, the owners were as vociferous and, as per custom, started recounting their life story to Maria (I hope their mum’s piles have now settled).

Broadway, is indeed a beautiful village with some stupendous little shops including a chocolatery, antiques, an art shop, cafes and interior décor shops (oddly). It is chocolate box perfect and quintessential English village. The Cotswalds is not a place per se, but a collection of villages and countryside. As such, a car or long rambling walks are heavily encouraged. This will ensure one can fully appreciate the surreal and astoundingly beautiful vistas. Each individual village has little but its pleasing prospects to delight the eyes, so a frequent tour between them through fields and enhanced by visits to one of the many National Trust stately homes, is essential in my view. The national trust subsists entirely on tickets and memberships and for a visit in the UK, I would strongly recommend the annual ticket as it is not only more cost effective, but enables access to other sites both in Scotland and in association with Italy’s FAI.

A word of caution on driving however, the lanes are narrow and have some wear and tear. So chose your vehicle carefully. My vehicle, while perfect to enjoy the summer weather, is sadly equipped with rather stiff suspensions, which was far from ideal. The bouncing ensured that every tooth was rattling in our skull with no mercy, coupled with Maria’s “sing along” to the radio, I consider it a miracle my head did not explode. However, this did not diminish our pleasure, which goes some way to show you how spectacular the area is.

Of the villages worth visiting, there are some which are absolute classics, like Stowe-on-the-Wald, Burton-on-the-water, Castle Combe, Chipping Campden, but others and, in fact, most are worth a drive through or a walk. Rambling from one to the other with the intervening countryside is ideal, and gives one plenty of time to contemplate and speculate at how much the original residents had had to drink when naming these places. Broadway is the only one with some hint of prevailing common sense. I suspect in olden times, there was not much to do, and a long, complicated name would both, lengthen a conversation amongst neighbours, when little news was to be had…..but also force people to ask for directions , hence enabling further conversation.

Needs must when the devil drives. I have no idea what that means by the way.
Happy Easter lockdown everyone!

• 

• 

• 

•