Heart Of The Country

A trip to the Cotswolds today, to visit some of the picturesque villages we’d seen featured in various tv programmes over the years.
We started in Burford, which turned out to be not the idyllic little village I had seen on the telly. It looked like basically one long street of expensive shops, hotels and bakeries designed to relieve the tourists of as much money as possible.
Quite disappointing so we moved on to the village of Bibury. Described by William Morris as “the most beautiful village in England”, I can certainly see where he was coming from. The village was mentioned in the Domesday Book but is probably most famous for a row of cottages that date back to the 14th Century. Known as Arlington Row, they were featured on the inside front cover of U.K. passports issued between 2010 & 2016, so an awful lot of people will have seen the cottages without knowing where they actually were. We had a very pleasant stroll around the village, but there isn’t a lot else to see besides Arlington Row.
Heading back to the hotel, we went via Chipping Norton to see what it was like.
All I would say is that it seemed exactly like you would expect a place that is home to David Cameron and Jeremy Clarkson to be like.
It was all very pretty in the Cotswolds, and I can see why it’s a desirable area to live, especially given the proximity to Oxford and London. But I don’t necessarily agree with William Morris. I may be biased but I reckon there are villages in the Lake District that are more deserving of the epithet “most beautiful in England”.
Anyway, that’s the countryside ticked off. Tomorrow we head into London for the day. A cruise on the river, a trip to the theatre and a look at the Battersea Power Station development are all on the cards, so it’s going to be an early start to catch the first off-peak train into Euston. At least we know that the last train back is not until 1am, so we don’t have to rush when we leave the theatre. But it’s going to be a long day…