England - Tuesday and Wednesday

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May 24th 2011

Published: June 12th 2011

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North Farmcote B&B

This is the front of the B&B. Our room was on the back side with an impressive view over the lower Cotswolds

ENGLAND
at the B&B:

Tuesday, May 24th

We left GSP airport on time at 2:25 PM, Monday, May 23rd, connected in Atlanta to the flight for London's Gatwick airport and arrived in London, again on time, at 7:10 AM, Tuesday, May 24th. We picked up the rental car, with right hand drive and, after familiarizing myself with the controls, pulled out of the parking spot and promptly got lost in the parking garage. (We didn't really get lost, just had trouble finding the exit for a while.) Unfortunately, this was a theme repeated often on this trip. I will NEVER again go to Europe and rent a car without owning a good GPS.

We left the airport (on the left side of the road most of the time) around 8:30 AM or so and headed for the North Farmcote B&B near Winchcombe, England, using directions printed from Google's map site. Good directions but, in many cases, poorly marked roads. I only occasionally ran up on the sidewalk or shoulder on the left side of the road. Really took some time to get used to judging where the left side of the car was. Anne helped out in this regard

From the B&B window

Taken from the window of our room at North Farmcote B&B. Not the best picture but gives you and idea of the view we had.

after we straightened out a few procedural problems. Since I was driving from the right side of the car and Anne was on my left (my bad ear side – well, they're both bad but the left one is the worst) I had trouble understanding what she was saying. At first it was mosty bracing for impact and shouting “LEE” or “WATCH OUT” which did not tell me what I should be watching out for. I requested that she shout “TOO CLOSE” when I let the left side of the car get too close to the side of the road, and that seemed to work pretty well. At times, back seat (or side seat) driving can be a little annoying, but in this case I needed all the help I could get. Found the general area ok but had trouble finding the actual B&B once we got off of the main roads and onto the narrow (REALLY narrow) lanes in rural England. Eventually found the B&B and, overall, were very pleased with it. In fact our host at the B&B, a Mr. David Eayers, welcomed us and invited us to join his brother and a visiting friend in the sitting

Pedestrian Path

This is the view from the start of the pedestrian path near the B&B. The junction with Cotswold Way is near the bottom of the hill and comes from the field to the right and continues on down this path to Winchcombe.

room of the house for gin & tonics. Mind you, this was around noon, local time (7 AM body time), of the day of our arrival but, not to be impolite, we joined them and had a very nice time discussing everything from our trip to solutions to world problems (they really do say "bloody hell" a lot).

After moving luggage into our room, and having our welcoming gin & tonic, we changed into walking clothes and walked down the gravel pedestrian lane to the junction with the Cotswold Way, following it on down the hill to the ruins of an old abby. We then retraced our steps going back up the hill to a junction where the Cotswold Way passed up through a pasture full of sheep, mostly ewes with two lambs each, to a high point with great views. This portion of the Cotswold Way passes directy across the Farmcote farm and is positioned on a high point with nice views to the South and Southwest over the lower Cotswolds. We could actually look down on the village of Winchcombe.

After finishing our walk, we drove into Winchcombe, parked and, luckily, found a hardware store just

Footpath View

Taken from the footpath down the hill a bit from the B&B.

getting ready to close. We needed an adaptor to use to plug in our laptop, razor, and hairdryer. I had an adaptor for the plugs used on the continent, but the ones in the UK are different. This store had just what we needed. Walked around the quaint village of Winchcombe for a while, then drove to a small village near the B&B named Ford where we had dinner at the Plough Inn and Pub. I had fish & chips served with bright green peas (traditional?) and a locally brewed ale. Can't remember what Anne had to eat but think she had a Bloody Mary there. Drove back to the B&B and managed to stay awake until around 9:00 PM before collapsing. We were dissapointed to find that the WiFi connection was not working at that time so we could not sign into the email account. As it turned out, the connection seemed to work pretty well in the mornings but not in the afternoon or evenings. We were able to connect on Wenesday morning.

Wednesday, May 25th

On Wednesday we were up at a respectable 7:00 AM or so and went down to the dining room around

On the Cotswold Way

Taken in the Farmcote sheep pasture on the Cotswold Way. Not sure how we managed to avoid getting sheep in this picture.

8:15. David, our host, served me a true English breakfast. This consisted of toast, two slices of delicious ham, a link of excellent sausage, a fried egg, and sauteed mushrooms and tomato with orange juice and coffee to drink. Anne doesn't eat much on these trips and certainly not much meat. So – she had the veggies and orange juice. At breakfast we met another couple who were also staying at the B&B. These folks were from Wales, just to the west of where we were near Winchcombe. They were a retired couple on vacation and were staying at North Farmcote for several more days than we were. We had a pretty interesting conversation with them; however, between their accent and my bad ears, I had a bit of trouble understanding them from time to time.

The English, apparently, love to walk, so much so that landowners generally allow (are essentially required to allow) free passage over defined walkways through their property. In fact, each year a group called the Rambling Society organizes a “Mass Trespass”, when each of the country's 50,000 miles of public footpaths is walked. They insure that each path is used at least once a

Farmcote Chapel

This small Saxon chapel was next to the B&B. There was a graveyard there with several fairly recent graves and many ancient ones, including one area of mass graves.

year, thus stopping landlords from putting up fences without a means of crossing, such as kissing gates or stiles. Any paths found to be blocked are unceremoniously unblocked - at least according to Rick Steves' guidebook. We did find many public footpaths and walkways in and around the Cotswold villages we visited.

Broadway

I had done a lot of searching on line before we left South Carolina and had found several “Circular Walks” in the Cotswolds that each included a good portion of the actual Cotswold Way as well as some other connecting public walkways. So, after breakfast we drove to Broadway, another village about 7 miles away where one of the 'Circular Walks' was located. It took us a while to find a place to park and then to find the starting point for the walk but, as was so often the case on this trip, we stumbled upon a public 'car park' that wasn't too far from where we needed to be. Most of the parking areas in the villages we visited charged for parking and this one was no different. It had a machine that would take your money and issue a ticket for the

Mass Grave Site

Back in the 14th century victims of the plague were buried in the chapel cemetery in this mass grave.

length of time you had paid for. Took me a while to figure it all out but, with the help of a kind lady who graciously explained the intricacies of the machine, I managed to feed the correct amount into the machine for 4 hours and received the appropriate ticket. We were cautioned not to overstay our time since the area was patrolled regularly and penalties for staying too long were substantial.

This walk was about 4 miles long and included portions along High Street (the main street in most of the Cotswold villages is called 'high street'😉 as well as through the countryside and the Broadway Country Park. It included a climb to the second highest point in the Cotswolds, 1024 feet above sea level. There is a tower situated on the top of this hill that was built in 1798 for Lady Coventry by her husband, the 6th Earl of Coventry. Views from the hilltop are spectacular, and you are supposed to be able to see 13 counties and into Wales from the top of the tower. We did not climb the tower since the views from the base were great, and there was a charge of

Farmcote B&B Garden

The decorative "mushroom" things were used in the olden days as foundation supports for barns. The mushroom shape prevented mice and rats from entering the barn.

around 5 pounds per person to do so, a steep price for just 55 more feet. After completing the walk, we still had about an hour and a half before our time at the car park ran out so we strolled (well, I strolled. Anne, as usual, went a bit faster) through the village. Back at the car park, we made lunch out of some of the multitude of snacks we had taken along, then drove to the next little village, Chipping Campden, for another walk.

Chipping Campden

Chipping Campden is at the northern most point of the Cotswold Way trail, and I had found another 'circular walk' that took in the beginning of the trail and was about 4.5 miles long, so that is what we were looking for. Getting from Broadway to Chipping Campden was fairly easy and, again, we stumbled upon the perfect place to park. We had followed a sign for parking but had no idea where it might be in relation to where we needed to be. The spot we found had free parking and was very close to the start of the walk we were looking for. (Better lucky than smart any

A kissing gate

The kissing gate is used to permit people to pass through a fence but not livestock. It is so named because the gate kisses the post on either side of the V. This one was located at the foot of the pedestrian pathway.

day.) We parked and walked down the slight hill to the next street. I guess we looked like we didn't know where we were because a very nice gentleman approached and asked if we needed help. We told him that we were looking for the starting point of the Cotswold Way. He was a wealth of information about the Cotwold Way and told us that the street we were on was part of the trail and the starting point was just down the street. The walk we were looking for started right there so we thanked the gentleman and began our walk. The trail led up a hill to a high point, down through a forest and then back up the hill to the highest point on this part of the trail. The hill is called Dover's hill and is the site of the annual 'Olimpick Games' which have been played here every spring since 1610 and involve painful sounding sports like 'shin-kicking' and 'pike-tumbling'. Views from the hill were impressive.

All the walks we took in the Cotswolds passed through pastures full of sheep (and their droppings) and this walk was no exception. I don't think it would

Sheep along the Costwold Way

These sheep were in one of the Farmcote pastures that the Costwold Way passed through.

be an exageration to say that there are more sheep than people in that area. That was fine with us since, given the choice, we'd choose lots of animals over lots of people any day. Historically the Cotswolds, which is generally thought to mean"sheep enclosure in rolling hillsides", made the residents rich through the raising of sheep for the wool trade. Today the main source of income is tourism but sheep still abound, now marketed mostly for the meat rather than the wool.

All the pictures on this blog entry are from the two days spent in the Cotswolds. The next entry will cover Thursday and Friday, May 26 and 27, and travels to London, Brussels, and Aachen, Germany.

Additional photos below

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