In our nearly 4 plus years living in Europe, we have been all over the continent (and other continents!) exploring foreign countries and cultures. However, I could count on one hand the number of places we've visited within England outside of London. For whatever reason, it just hasn't been a place of focus for us. Well, we've gotten to work to change that in the last month with several excursions within the country.
During the first week of June, Olivia and Ashton had a week off of school. Usually we would have hopped on a plane to an European destination for a portion of the break. The last three years we have taken trips to
Croatia,
Greece and
Ireland during this same week. But having just returned from a trip to USA and back in four days for my brother's wedding, getting on another plane a week later held very little appeal. So we decided a better alternative would be the English countryside for a few days. Our destination was The Cotswolds, a region of central England about two hours away from London via car. The area is known for its slow pace, rolling hills and medieval villages...the perfect escape for the weekend!
Our rental house for the weekend was in the town of Stroud. We spent our first morning in Stroud visiting the farmer's market and enjoying some of the old sights.
After exploring Stroud, we hopped into our rental car to drive around the area, taking in the beautiful scenery and surrounding villages. The first village we stopped at was Little Barrington. It was indeed little, containing maybe 15-20 homes, all of them exactly what you imagine when you think of the English countryside.
Our next stop was the village of Bibury. When researching villages within The Cotswolds to visit, I saw that Bibury was coined "the most beautiful village in England" and I knew we had to stop there. It did not disappoint. Bibury looks like it is straight out of a storybook, filled with cobblestone streets and perfect little cottages. It was so charming and picturesque.
We stopped in at a trout farm in Bibury where the girls got to feed the trout and get out some of their energy on the playground. Beautiful village: happy mommy. Playground: happy kids. Happy mommy and kids: happy daddy!
On our last morning before returning to London, we took at small hike through the countryside to get ice cream. The hiking path was more rocky, muddy and uphill then we anticipated but well, sometimes the things we have to do to get ice cream must be done.
On our drive back to London, we stopped at the village of Bourton-on-the-Water. Burton is called the "Little Venice" of The Cotswolds thanks to the canal that runs through it. The canal certainly was the center of all activity within the village. With bright sun and warmer temps, tons of families were picnicking and relaxing next to the canal while others were actually wading into the shallow water to cool off.
