An Area of Natural Beauty

Now reporting 7:30 AM British Standard time in a little village a couple hours outside of London. Chalford Hill to be exact.

Caught the flight from Salzburg to London Gatwick airport and we picked up a rental car there for what would be my first experience driving on the wrong side of the road. I signed all the papers and hopped in the Skoda with Tom and our bags and we arrived to a beautiful sunny day in London from the rainy, cold Austria. We headed straight for Wiltshire to see the great ancient rock formation of Stonehenge since it was not far out of the way on our journey to the Cotswolds. 

This first leg of driving wasn’t bad at all. It was basically all highways and I got used to checking for the drivers from the right rather than the left. We got to Stonehenge around 4 pm. They close the ticketing booth before then as well as the shuttle bus so we were walking the mile or two there. We made the quick pilgrimage down the country road through plains and hills full of sheep to get to it. There are all kinds of theories on Stonehenge from ancient ancestors moving these 25-ton boulder 100s of miles with wooden tools and pure manpower, to aliens placing them in a certain way to create a portal to a different world. 

It’s a real hippy dippy place and there were a bunch of RV’s camped to check it out for the super moon. Tom and I read up on all the theories, the alignment with the sun for the solstice, the energy portal, the strange acoustic and magnetic effects they create, and more. We were messing around coming up with crazier theories and decided it was an ancient xylophone for Giants. Either way, cool place, very random and never in my life would I have expected to get there. Also not a fan of how they gatekeep and charge for natural beauties like this. Always hated beach tags this is no different. They don't even let you up to touch the stone if you have a ticket.

The next leg of driving was not so easy as the navigation took us on tons of tight roads and one lane roads that were used as two-ways. The first time you face another car head-to-head and they somehow speed past you on the nonexistent shoulder that’s part hill/part gravel at 60 mph is definitely unsettling. This was a crazy experience and it’s been how the rest of the driving around the villages is out here. You get somewhat used to it but it’s still uncomfortable. Once we got to our airbnb and it was getting dark we still needed to eat and found a place called the Lamb Inn in Eastcombe. A classic British village pub and we were basically the only 2 people in there on a Monday night. They still served up a delicious dinner for us. 

I took a little tour down a footpath near our place first thing in the morning and exploring the small town at dawn was peaceful. Not a sound besides one man opening a community shop around 730 and nature surrounding them. 

We took the car to hit the main spots that are inside the hidden gem of the Cotswolds. It’s listed on the map as an AONB and we were wondering what that stood for. It’s an Area of Natural Beauty and it fits the description. Well-kept and picturesque throughout. We went to the towns of Stow-On-The-Wold, Bourton-On-The-Water, and Bibury. We stopped by a place called the Porch House claiming to be the oldest Inn in England, dating to the 900s. Bourton-On-The-Water was our favourite and I would already like to come back and stay in one of them for a few days or a week. They are classic and feel like you’re walking into another time.

It was an impromptu pub crawl since these towns are littered with pubs and inns and we had lunch at The Catherine Wheel in Bibury. Tom got some trout caught that day at the trout farm on the property and I had the pork belly special. All fantastic. 

We wanted to get rid of the car for the later part of the day so we didn’t have to worry about driving the crazy blind turns on 2-way one lanes in the dark. Surprisingly it was easy and not expensive to get an uber out here and we hit the closest town to us called Cirencester at night. There’s a nearby college of Agriculture there and it was definitely a more lively place than the quaint true villages of the Cotswolds. It was what we were looking for though and we walked the town and continued the pub crawl. 

The Bear Inn was a favourite besides the ranting we received about the British political scene from some random dude at the bar. Everyone walking in that place seemed to know each other and we witnessed some funny scenes because of it. A young kid telling an 80 year old man who just walked in that he got fired today and the two of them were talking like old pals just running into each other. One more great dinner out in Cirencester and that rounded out our stay here in this cool cutout of the world. 

The final leg starts today with a drive to London. I think we are going to stop in Oxford on the way out and check out the grounds there. I’ll check back in when I feel like it.