Day 15

Today was a day I had been eagerly anticipating…our trip to the English countryside, better known as The Cotswolds. The Cotswolds are famous for their quaint villages, architecture and the gorgeous surrounding landscape. The whole of The Cotswolds is nearly 800 miles, so it’s too large to be seen in one day, but we managed to hit quite a few of the most popular villages.

To get to The Cotswolds from London we took the train to a place called Kemble, where we met our tour guide for the day and driver. Having had some experience on the trains now, it was pretty easy to navigate the station this time. We left from London’s Paddington Station, which of course had an entire shop dedicated to the famous bear! The ride was smooth, and just under an hour!

I’m not going to list all the places we went, although I do have them written down. I’m going to let the pictures speak for themselves. One side story from the day that is pretty important to me has to do with a trip back in time, nearly 40 years ago! In 1986 my Mom and Dad took my sister Kristin and I to England and France during our spring break. I was 14 and she was 18. One of the places we spent a couple of days was The Cotswolds. I had a couple of very vivid memories of this trip, and as we started driving through the area, I started to wonder if maybe we would stop at any of the same spots I had been to 39 years ago. This idea became so persistent that when we stopped for coffee break at a café in village 3, I called RJ (it was about 7:45 a.m. his time) and asked him to dig out the photo album I had made of that trip. Luckily I knew exactly where it was! He obliged, and gave me the name of the hotel I had recorded, and the place we had lunch that I took a photo of some lovely scenery. When I ended the call and gave the name of the hotel to our guide, Laura, she exclaimed, “That’s where we’re going next!” And in another ironic twist, the place where I took the memorable photograph is located in her hometown! (Which we weren’t going to visit, but that’s ok!)

When we drove up to the hotel from so many years ago, I did have a vague recollection of it from the outside. The part that really caused a jolt was the dining room, and I could vividly remember having breakfast in that space. It was a wonderful. bittersweet moment of coming full circle. When I get home I’m going to put some of the old and new pictures side by side!

Another special part of the day was when we went to a place called The Woolen Weavers of The Cotswolds, which is a historic wool mill and loom shop. The shop and store are closed on Mondays, but as a favor to our tour guide, the owner opened it up and gave us a tour of the original looms which ARE STILL USED TODAY, and let us browse around the shop. We each got a nice memento from this stop! After almost 8 hours of exploring, it was time to head back to London. We were pretty tired, so we opted to have dinner in the hotel and get packed up. The previous night we had eaten out at a fun place on the Thames River, and I got some nice nighttime pictures that I’ll put with today’s story.

Next up is our last day in London before this epic adventure comes to an end. We are sad that once again it seems like the days have flown by, but the memories we’ve made and captured in photos and videos will stay with us forever!