We spent the week meandering between the little towns around ours. There were some very cute little places we found, Broadway and Bourton-on-the-Water were my favorites. Made me giggle to see the names of all the places, they had such descriptive names. something or other -on-the-hill, or upon-avon (which basically means on the river), or -on-the-Wold (which means on the rolling hills), etc. They sure liked to be literal, love it. :-D
Little Orchard - our cottage.
The Old Market square in Chipping Campden city center.
Yay! Fun door!!! Thank you Dad for playing along :-)
Loved these signs, there were many that seemed like they would be very nice decorations in my house. They made us giggle. :-)
Our fearless navigator on our trek day one. Started out great, we hiked along some fields, and through a little pony pen, and through some more fields... and then into cow pastures... NOT IDEAL. It had been raining the days before so the fields were muddy... and mud mixed with cow shit is not ideal. There were spots where we were forced to walk through the 'mud' knowing that it wasn't just mud that was soaking into our shoes. :( My poor running shoes are traumatized, cow poo does not smell nice. I really don't understand why the cows all have to congregate right next to the spot in the fence where we are to climb over. Ugh.
Mom and Kettie's Shetland Pony friends :-)
I love mom's hair in this pic, it makes me smile every time, makes me think of a Dr Seuss character :-)
Setting out on our hike on day 2. We headed over to a little town a few miles away called Broadway, I made Dad do his research and make sure we were not going through any cow pastures this day. One day of that was enough for me, think I might be scarred for life with two in a row ;-p
Kissing gate! That is the actual name for the little gates which only one person can fit through at a time. Needless to say, there were lots of kisses along the way.
Kettie Kins looking up towards the Broadway Tower in the distance. Real life Rapunzel tower, he he.
One of the cute little baby sheep in the pastures we were going through. Is funny that the public footpaths really just go right through the fields, these guys get many visitors every day. Not that they wanted anything to do with us still, but at least they were used to seeing us there.
We followed the acorns all around the UK, they were yellow acorns in Cornwall, and black acorns in Cotswold.
Broadway - the vines growing on the side of the buildings were to die for, so pretty!!!!
Our day in Bourton-on-the-Water. Very cute little town, I guess it gets pretty overrun with tourists in the winter but in the spring it was very pleasant. We even made a little duck friend..
Five seconds before I lost my flip flop in the river... Had to wade through to retrieve it, good thing the current was slow, and the water is not too deep :-)
Baby ducks!!!!
Mom and Kettie making another horse friend
Brown sheep?? Never heard of such a thing! An anomaly. he he.
The fjord in Upper Slaughter, we were just hiking so we didn't have to drive through this one, but there were others we had to cross. Quite a strange sensation to purposely drive through water, when that is actually where the road goes. There were water depth markers to show how deep the water is, must mean that there are times that you will not be able to cross in a car!
Little snack break in Slaughter, cute little town, but there was seriously nothing there. We were very hungry, not ideal.
The Old Mill in Lower Slaughter, we ate at the little restaurant out back.
Our day exploring Stratford-Upon-Avon, Shakespeare's hometown. We wandered the streets, drank some tea when it started raining too hard... And then went and saw a play; Twelfth Night. Still don't understand 75% of what is being said in Shakespeare literature, but was really fun to see the play. The actors were good and made the show worth it!
Our seats up in the second upper circle, we were a bit afraid it was going to be nose bleed section, but it turned out to be great seats. The theatre was small enough that we were not too high, and we were in the front row so that always helps!
Our day exploring Oxford. Was a very big city compared to what we had been exploring, but was still really fun. It was interesting to see how the city was built up around the different Colleges which make up Oxford. They all were completely separate.
Mom and I explored around Christ Church College so we could get a taste of what one of the colleges were like. Clearly we had to pick one of the ones which inspired Harry Potter.
The outdoor hallways had a Harry Potter feel to them :-)
The stairs into the great hall were actually used in the filming of the first movie :-D So special to be in Harry Potter land! I know, I know, huge nerds, but was making us both smile pretty big!
The great hall in the college inspired the set for the movies, though they made it much larger in a studio for the actual filming as you needed more room than you could get in here. There were only three rows in this dining hall, but the students still really still come in here and sit during the mealtimes. That would be a fun sight to see.
They opened the cathedral for a few minutes just while we were in there, to let a couple of groups in. We had the pleasure of the pastor (preacher, uhh, not sure what you call him in here...) coming in and having everyone stop to say a little prayer for those in the world who were suffering. Was a nice little sentiment.
Our last day of exploring around, we went out to 'one of the most beautiful cities in the Cotswolds' (lets be honest, they said that about every one of the cities they talked about). It was a cute little place with the stone cottages, we went for a hike around and had lunch near the ducks. We fed them some of our left over bread, and watched as the very aggressive fish zoomed in and stole a bunch of the pieces. Was priceless to watch them come up and snatch it right out from under the ducks bills. They scared the little baby ones though which was not quite so fun, felt bad for the little guys.
As always we had an amazing adventure together as a family, and had many people wondering what our ages were (i.e. why on earth we were still traveling with our parents when we are grown adults). They just didn't know how fun we all are. We are lucky that we all get along so well, and do have so much fun exploring together. I can't wait for the next adventure we take together!
