The Cotswolds

After a delicious breakfast of croissants and juice, we left our friends' house near Bath and headed off to drive through The Cotswold area.  This area was the primary wool producing area but was badly hurt by the rise of cotton and the Industrial Revolution.  The small villages are reknown for their loveliness.

We headed first for Bourton-on-the-water and had a lovely Sunday roast dinner (I love that tradition.)

We wandered around the tiny village admiring the river.  Larry visited a good model railroad museum while I wandered in and out of nice shops.  The town is very tourist oriented, to say the least, but very pleasant. (Thank you, Kara, for suggesting this particular town.)

Then we headed off to Chipping Campden (don't you just love those names?) another charming village stuck in the past.  These towns all have very large, wide main street areas because they used to bring the sheep into town (I presume to auction them or whatever).  Makes for easy parking these days.

The best thing we saw there, however, was a gorgeous thatched roof house.  It had perfectly trimmed hedges.  Just magnificent.  They are getting rarer and rarer.

The other thing we saw there was the first "suburban" subdivison that really reminded us of the states, with large lawns in front, no walls or fences - very unusual here in England.

We drove through a number of other lovely villages and eventually reached our target of Stratford-upon-Avon where we had booked a very nice B&B for the night.    The English countryside was magnificent (but I did a terrible job recording it on my camera!).  

 It was green rolling hills of farm land.  Just beautiful.  A welcome change to urban London and Richmond.