Cotswolds, Bath & Stonehenge

Dan and I were both awake for several hours last night, but unfortunately at different times! 

(When we were in Norway, we both woke up about the same time, 

which was kind of fun to surf our phones at 3:00 a.m. together. 

Last night I resorted to hanging out in the bathroom and doing my Duolingo on silent.)

Our gorgeous hotel is an old manor house aptly named, "Lords of the Manor" with gorgeous rooms,

narrow halls, beautiful woodwork and a few steps here and there to various "salons" (spaces to "rest and retire" or have a drink while reading the results of the polo match in the newspaper ).

We got moving early so we could fit in the rest of the Cotswolds, go to Stonehenge and Bath,

and make it back to London in time to see Les Miserables, courtesy of our friends who were here last week and had to leave early!

Our first plan was to walk over to Lower Slaughter.

The "path" was across large fields and through several small gates.

The only way it could be more picturesque is if we had walking sticks, galoshes

 and English accents.

Lower Slaughter has a row of limestone cottages, similar to what we've seen, lining a small river

from waterwheel at the old flour mill ending in town at an large estate inn 

and even larger estate manor. 

I'd love to see these towns brought to life as they were originally built.

The Lords in the big house. Their children in the "smaller" next door and small cottages for the help to live in? 

After our walk and breakfast, we drove to Bourton-on-the-Water,

a bustling town on... the water... with many cafes, shops and even a car museum and mini village.

We bought sandwiches to eat on the road and journeyed on to Castle Combe, one street of homes built below a hill on a slope. The manor at the top, an inn next to it, a monument in the townsquare, and private connected homes running down the hill to the river. One home had sandwich offerings with their front door open, another home that sold baked goods. 

There's a view from a bridge that's the most common picture of The Cotswolds 

I came across while researching online, but, you can't get to the bridge view unless you trespassed beyond a private gate, so we didn't. Because I'm a rule follower, mostly.

With that we said goodbye to the narrow, yet charming lanes of Cotswolds and 

debated if we should stop at Bath on our way to Stonehenge.

In the end we decided, yes, we'd rather miss the first half of Les Mis since we'd seen it many many times before, and see Bath instead.

The Roman ruins and history of Bath were very interesting and the compound is large so you get plenty of time to learn and enjoy. Bath was built around a natural hot spring that still flows.

The green water was off-putting, but I didn't have to bathe in it,

so I'm not sure why.

We enjoyed the audio tours and learned a lot.

Most of which I prompty forgot.

And all of which Dan remembers.

Dan's friends took a tour of the town which we'll do next time if we go back, because maybe we missed some great parts of town. Otherwise, while interesting, weren't a "go back" place.

On to Stonehenge.

Which was magical. And beautiful. And windy.

Shoutout to Dan who indulged me in photos at every 

silly photo spot (indicated by a sign, which I thought was very modern for a space over thousands of years old.)

We made the drive back to London, Heathrow, to return the rental car in ninety minutes.

Then an uber to the city to drop our bags at the hotel and make it to Les Mis just before intermission.

Les Mis was amazing, of course. A perfect end to this dreamy day!