The Cotswolds, United Kingdom

   (Part One of Three Parts)

Quintessential Cotswolds Cottages

  When you grow up speaking English, with all the benefits of life in a democracy, misunderstanding Shakespeare, watching Doc Martin, you will naturally want to visit the mother country. I was actually an English major way back, and a proud member of P.O.E.M.  But I had to go back for a marketable  degree to finance my foreign trips.
  Teresa and I have been talking about this trip for years. We took a trip to Scotland in the meantime, and spent a few hours in Heathrow airport once on the way home from another trip, but England is an expensive place. It was Brexit that provided the spark to get a move on. When we went to Scotland in 2007, a British pound cost $1.60 so you multiplied everything by $2. After the Brexit vote to leave the EU, the pound dropped to $1.29, so now we multiplied by one. That made a big difference.
  Twenty years ago Teresa read the James Herriot animal books and said she wanted to visit their setting in Yorkshire. I started doing research on Yorkshire. Durham  a bit further north looked interesting, and Hadrian's Wall was also within reach. After a few days there, we could head over to the Lake District where Wordsworth hung out. When I told Teresa about this, she asked if that was where all the little villages connected by footpaths are. Hmmm, no, that would be the Cotswolds further south. She had read an article about the Cotswolds in the travel section of the paper and was intrigued by the image of hiking from village to village. "And don't forget Portwenn," she said. Portwenn is the fictional setting for the British show Doc Martin. The real name is Port Isaac, way down in Cornwall.
  I'm a firm believer in getting to a place and staying there for a few days. I scrubbed Yorkshire and the Lake District and filled our three week itinerary with the Cotswolds and Cornwall. The next business was to reserve airline tickets, a car, and a B&B for the first few days in England.
  We arrived in London at noon on September 27. By the time we got through customs and rode the bus to Hertz, it was close to two. We loaded our suitcases in our sporty Honda Civic. The man at the counter had drawn us a map for getting on the road to the Cotswolds. It looked complicated, plus we had to stay on the left side of the road, plus I hadn't slept in over 24 hours. The Civic had a key fob like our car at home. You just stepped on the brake pedal and pushed a button on the dash to start the engine. I couldn't find the button though. Teresa suggested asking someone, but I felt that if I couldn't figure out how to start the car, I shouldn't be driving in traffic. The minutes passed. I looked at the fob again. It had a little button which caused a key to pop out. After a few more minutes I found the keyhole. Brmmm, brmmm. The map led us through several roundabouts. I was concentrating on staying to the left, Teresa was trying to decipher the map. There was no time to read road signs which I was soon to discover don't really point to the place you want to go. The signs are an example of British humor. We ended up on a four lane highway. Was it the right road? Who knows? At last we spotted a sign for Oxford which was on our route to the Cotswolds.
  We were heading for the town of Bourton-on-the-Water, 75 miles west of Heathrow Airport. Google maps said it would take an hour and 38 minutes. This was an example of Google humor. The car rental place urged me to get their GPS, but at $12 per day I figured we could find our way. I would come to regret this decision. Before we left home, I had downloaded maps of England onto Teresa's iPad for use offline. I had also skipped AT&T's offer of $10 a day iPhone service. This also was a regrettable economy.
  As we approached our destination, the roads got narrower and the oncoming trucks loomed larger. Teresa warned me of the stone wall zipping by her head. I said for the first of many times that I'd rather scrape a wall than run into a semi. We eventually turned off onto the road to downtown Bourton. Every English town under 5,000 has a narrow main street, or High Street as they call it, with no room for parking. But cars were allowed to park for thirty minutes to pop into the shops. So High Street was really a one lane street and you negotiated your passage with oncoming drivers by flashing your lights.  Now that I was driving slowly, the beepers that warned me I was too close to objects started going off.

England is best viewed close up and on foot

  We both thought we were on High Street, but as we passed through the town things did not compute. The Google map listed street names, but streets signs in English towns are optional, and where they do exist, they take on an infinite variety of forms. Give me a bloody post with nice green street signs please, with white lettering, if it's not too much trouble! Jet lag was beginning to take it's toll. We drove back and forth three times through the narrow High Street before we realized it wasn't High Street at all. In fact it was the street our B&B was on. We had driven by our B&B five times before picking out the sign for the Red Roof East B&B. Halleluiah! We left the car to cool its tires for 36 hours and settled into our room. We were too energized to nap so walked downtown for supper then home again for bed.
  Of course we're wide awake at midnight. At home it's six p.m. You've had a nice afternoon nap and are ready for an evening of sightseeing. Unfortunately everything's closed now here in England. I pop a sleeping pill and read till I get drowsy at two a.m. Teresa just reads.
  The next morning, Kate, the proprietor, cooked us a full English breakfast. Why do they put all the toast in wire racks so it goes cold before you can slather on the butter? We chat with an Australian couple who are hiking through the Cotswolds, stopping each night at a different B&B. A van hauls their luggage on to the next stop ten or twelve miles down the road.
  We too are going hiking today. We're taking the public footpath over to Lower Slaughter which is one mile away. That's nothing compared to what the Aussies were doing, but we were going to continue another mile and a half to Upper Slaughter. It had rained last night and Kate said the footpath would be muddy, but it wasn't as bad as we expected, just a bit slick. There was a sign on Kate's front door and on many other shops as well asking patrons to remove muddy boots.
  We set off on our first public footpath on a sunny Thursday morning, headed for Lower Slaughter. No one knows why the towns are called "Slaughter," but they do know it has nothing to do with blood and guts. The system of footpaths in England and Wales is amazing, covering over 140,000 miles. There's an association called The Ramblers that organizes hikes and keeps an eye out for landowners who try to close the paths, some of which have been in use for hundreds of years.

One mile down, 139,999 to go

  Lower Slaughter was a perfect little English town. The mill no longer ground flour, but was now a museum, a gift shop and a café. We stopped for a break. The path to Upper Slaughter was mostly across a sheep pasture. The pasture sloped upward as you'd expect. There was an ancient church in Upper Slaughter and some stone houses, but nothing else for the tourist. We checked out the church, chatted with the woman vacuuming the pews and threw a pound in the collection box.

Lest we forget

  We got back to our B&B a little after one. Five minutes later we were downtown via a newly discovered footpath shortcut. These paths cut across towns and cities as well as the countryside. Last evening the town had been deserted. Now it was filled with hundreds of Japanese tourists armed with selfie sticks. Tourist coaches run out from London every morning, sending their passengers out shopping in Bourton, then head back around four p.m. for supper in the big city. Bourton is undeniably cute. The narrow Windrush River is contained in a stone channel and is spanned by several foot bridges. If you're going to travel all the way from Japan, you must shoot some iconic selfies from England and Bourton is just the place.
  Despite all the tourists, the town did not seem overcrowded. The place maintained its Old England look to cater to swarms of visitors. It was fun watching the variety of poses struck by these interlopers. And as I say, the place cleared out by tea time.

Hanging around Bourton

  On Day Two we got back on the road. Instead of taking the straightforward highway up to Stow-on-the-Wold, our map suggested we take the very narrow roads through the Slaughters and Swell. We did get to Stow, but the trip was harrowing. My trusty Rick Steves guide said there was free parking at the Tesco supermarket, a ten minute walk out of town. Free parking is almost unheard of in England. I carefully scrutinized the signs in the big parking lot. It looked like we could leave the car for up to 24 hours. Free! Amazing! Also, the supermarket had free restrooms. Remarkable. There was no sign on the front door saying  "Restrooms for Customers Only."
 Stow-on-the-Wold was a cool place. The library in the center of town had a strong Wi-Fi signal, also free, so I could peruse my phone while Teresa checked out the charity shops. Every town has at least one charity shop, often more, raising money for cures for all the diseases of body and soul. Teresa loves thrift stores and these filled the bill. She's always on the watch for some perfect piece of clothing selling for a sliver of its original price, so she doesn't buy much. I too checked the stores, for  mid-century English novels to help me fall asleep at night. We hiked over to the church, the back door of which was said to have inspired an episode in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I struck a Gandalf pose in front of the door, posted it to Facebook, and got a ton of likes.
  Teresa was in the mood for a footpath. Mr. Steves mentioned a mile and half path to the village of Broadwell.  "We can have lunch there," we agreed. It was a fine walk under the overarching trees, but once at the pub we discovered the practice of village pubs only serving meals at specific hours. We were in between serving times, but did have a drink and a rest before our walk back to Stow.

Flowery kingdom

  We had to move the next day. I had only booked three nights in Bourton, not knowing if we'd like the place, and now it was Saturday and Kate was booked up. So I found a B&B 15 miles up the road in the town of Broadway. Fifteen miles! That's nothing in Roseau County. But for me, here in England, slipping behind the wheel was like entering one of those Halloween houses where they try to scare the bejeebers out of you. Looking at the map, it was impossible to tell whether the A424 would be relatively wide like the A429, or the white knuckler it turned out to be. Rick Steves claimed these Cotswolds backroads were delightful, and they would be if I could have  driven at 30 mph, but the speed limit was 50 and most people wanted to rip along at 60 or more. Rick said pull over and let the train of cars pass you. But I had noted the little pull offs were mostly wicked looking mud holes.
  Anyway, we made it to Broadway, named not for its theater district, but for its wide High Street. It was too early to check in so we found a pay and display parking lot and set off to check out the town. These parking lots have a central meter where you feed in coins and get a slip which you put in your front window, and you better be back before the printed time or it's a £100 fine. This town was also cute, filled with British rather than Japanese day trippers.
  We checked into Brook House B&B on the edge of town and looked for a hike.  We found we could hike up to Broadway Tower, two miles away.  The tower is a five story folly sitting all alone on top of a high hill. A folly in England is a useless structure built a long time ago by someone with too much money on their hands. The first half of the hike was across an immense horse pasture. Then it turned up a steep path through the woods. We asked a group coming down how far to the top. "About a half hour." I hoped they were exaggerating, but they weren't. There was a parking lot by the tower full of cars of the people who had missed the advantages of a vigorous hike. It cost £4 to climb the tower so we settled for some postcards plus a visit to the adjacent café. One of the best things about Britain is how a café always pops up when you're in need of a cup of tea and a scone.

The Folly on the Hilly

   On our way up, we had passed an ancient church at the base of the hill and decided to check it out on the way home. St. Eadburgha's was built in the 12th century. There's nothing like these ancient buildings to locate yourself in the grand scheme of things.
On the way back to the B&B we made a reservation at an Indian restaurant and went home to recuperate. British cuisine is as Indian inflected as ours is Mexican. The food that evening was tasty and all five waiters made sure we were happy.
  On Sunday we made our obligatory visit to a "Great House." I wanted to see at least one mansion à la Downton Abbey, and Sudeley Castle would be it. It was only nine miles down the B4632. I was worried because, in my short experience, B roads were usually one lane passages with frequent pull offs so oncoming cars could pass each other. But the B4632 proved to be a fairly pleasant drive.
  Before our visit to England, I had tried to read the history of the country but had only gotten as far as Henry VIII. I was intrigued to see that Henry's sixth wife, Katherine Parr, was buried at Sudeley. The castle at Sudeley had been built and wrecked a couple of times over the centuries. It's mostly in good shape now and the owners have opened it to visitors to help pay the bills. The family is related to Camilla Parker-Bowles and there was a picture of her and Charles prominently displayed in the living area we were allowed into.
  But back to Katherine Parr. There's a rhyme to help keep Henry's wives straight, "Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived." Katherine was the one who survived, but not for long. A few months after Henry's death, she married an old boyfriend. She was only 36. The following year she died at Sudeley as a result of childbirth and was buried there. The place was wrecked during the Civil War of the next century and in the following century became a place for romantic rambles. During one of those rambles, a group of women discovered a white stone in the floor of the church and had a local farmer remove it. They found a casket below with Katherine's name on it. A wealthy merchant bought the whole place and restored Sudeley to its present splendor. Katherine got an above  ground tomb with a fine statue of herself, recumbent.

Curst be he that moves my bones

  The next day was earmarked to visit the boyhood home of a famous English writer. And they don't come any more famous than Shakespeare. Mr. Steves warned that Stratford was touristy, but since it was only sixteen miles away, it would be a sin to miss it. Marianne, the owner of our B&B, used to work in Stratford and gave us directions for the back route into Stratford. It involved passage through several small towns, but we arrived safely at the gigantic car park just outside Stratford, got our display ticket for the dash, and hiked across the Avon River. There were swans swimming around the longboats people rent to cruise the canal down to Bath. We could see the gigantic Royal Shakespeare Theatre to the left. It was ugly but supposedly nice inside.  Judging by all the statues along our walk, the birth of Shakespeare mania was in the mid to late 1800s. But our century had kept everything spiffed up and added several new touches. There were three main sites to see in town plus two more on the outskirts. I appreciated that the man selling tickets advised that attempting all five in one day would be a little much. First we headed to Shakespeare's birthplace. By some miracle this building has survived five centuries of fire and demolition. Shakespeare inherited the place, but turned it into an inn after building a nicer place down the road. After his death in 1616 the house remained in the family until it was purchased by the Shakespeare Trust in the mid-nineteenth century and restored to its original look.

Shakespeare slept here

  There's a multimedia exhibit on Shakespeare's life in a large building before you enter the birthplace. Touring the house was fun and it was illuminating talking to the docents about life in Tudor days.  In the garden out back, three actors performed snippets from the plays. There were two other related houses in town that were less interesting, but we checked them out because they were included in our ticket. About then I realized our three hour parking ticket was almost up, so I left Teresa and speed walked across the river to feed more money into the meter. After checking out the other buildings we walked to Holy Trinity Church to see Shakespeare's grave. He's buried under the floor in front of the altar. They knew back then that he might be a big deal in the future. Also he had the money for a front row seat.

Falstaff and me

  We had lots more to see in the Cotswolds, but only one more day to do it. Everyplace seemed  beautiful; how to decide where to go?  One thing I definitely wanted to see in England was some trace of the Roman occupation of Britain during the first four centuries A.D. As we navigated the narrow roads I saw that Cirencester was only ten miles down the good old A429, one of the area's wider roads. I knew that Cirencester was built atop the Roman town of Cirinium, so we headed the chariot south. Finding Cirencester was easy. Finding the museum took some doing, but we found a parking spot near the museum. The museum was very well done. The Romans had had a full fledged city here with forum, amphitheater, and flush toilets. Everyone got to go to the amphitheater. Only the rich got to flush their toilets. It all collapsed around 410 when the army returned to protect Rome from the barbarians. The Saxons and the Angles took over, then the Normans and Vikings and it's been wars and rumors of wars ever since.
  The next morning after breakfast, we bid Marianne farewell and headed south for Cornwall, but that's the subject for another post.

It's the little touches