Day Three - To The Cotswolds

Okay, technically Bath is part of the Cotswolds but it is a fairly big town. It is not one of those "so cute you could pinch it's cheeks" small towns that dot the countryside. Our first stop of the day was Dyrham Park, another manor managed by the National Trust. It was also begun at the turn of the century, the 11th century, that is. But most of the house dates from the 1690s. It is a gorgeous house that sits at the bottom of green hills on one side and wide open vistas of the countryside on the other. It is a gorgeous day with a bright blue sky and just a few perfect white clouds floating across the sky. We stroll through the house admiring the beauty of the architecture and its furnishings. A favorite room was the creamery where they made their butter, separated the cream from the milk, and we are quite certain made their daily batch of clotted cream! It is a room covered in delft tiles with a spring fed fountain in the center used to keep the milk cool.

Dyrham Park

The Beautiful Creamery of Dyrham Park

We hiked back up to our car and then took the backroads through many pretty Cotswold towns. Flower boxes overflowed with colorful flowers and plopped in the center of several towns were the bright red phone booths you see on postcards. In between the town are fenced and hedged fields where bucolic sheep and dairy cows munch contentedly on the lush English grass. This is the England of American imagination and we are enjoying every minute!

Is The Grass As Soft As It Looks?  Ask Heide

We ended our day in Stow On The Wold. A sheep market town built mostly in the 1100's.  It was the sales destination of hordes of sheep and their wool. Now it is the meeting place of hordes of tourists but the buses had all gone by the time we arrived and we had it mostly to ourselves. We found a B & B right on the main street aptly named Sheep St. With a recommendation from our B & B host, we headed up the street to The Queen's Head Pub. It couldn't have been a more perfect ending to our day. Half timbered with slanting floors and ceilings and a jovial bartender at the bar, it was the quintessential English pub and the food was fabulous! Topped off with a pint of Stowford Press hard cider or Donnington Ale, it was another perfect English day.