The Cotswolds
ENGLAND & WALES, Chapter 5:
IN WHICH WE EXIT ENGLAND AND ARRIVE IN WALES
Day 5: Asthall, England to Monmouth, Wales. After a miserable night in the Maytime Inn spent in a cold room with some of the most uncomfortable beds ever, we checked out before breakfast, which was not to be served until 9:00. When we went to check out, innkeeper Tim made snide remarks about our rising before breakfast and stated that if he went to America, he certainly wouldn’t get up at such an uncivilized hour.
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| The injured thumb |
Ken told Tim about the dog bite and showed Tim his thumb. Like May, Tim shrugged off the incident saying that Ken must have done something to annoy the poor blind pup.
Having arrived after dark, we were quite impressed to see what the picturesque little village of Asthall (pictured above) actually looked like by day. On the way back to Burford, we saw the first of many pheasants, usually seen in pairs.
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Back in Burford, we walked along the main street and enjoyed coffee and tea before moving on, following a Cotswalds driving tour in the Fodor’s book. The drive took us on some very narrow country lanes through more tiny villages, each of which seemed to have a 16th or 17th century church (or older) and groups of stone cottages that appeared to be about the same age.
We drove through Great Barrington, Great Rissington, Bourton-on-the-Water, and Moreton-in-Marsh, to Bourton-on-the-Hill. There we tried to locate Sezincote House, where our guidebook promised a nice three-mile walk. Unfortunately, we never located the trailhead, so we moved on through Broadway and on to Cheltenam.
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In Cheltenham, we parked in a shopping center car park and tried in vain to locate an internet cafe. First we tried with Rosie, but the address we had from the internet was a street she couldn’t find. So we parked and asked around and obtained the addresses for three other places. All three were closed on Sunday. In the shopping center we visited the Thorntons candy store for some souvenirs. We considered staying in Cheltenham, but decided to move on and landed in Monmouth, just across the Welsh border.
The kind people at the TI office in Monmouth helped us book at room across the street at the King’s Head, a JD Weatherspoon hotel. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant, a veggie burger and chicken burger with chips (fries). After dinner, we were in the room when Erika surprised us with a phone call. Our attempt to call our pet sitter neighbors to check on the cats got no answer.
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| On a main street in Broadway |
The kind people at the TI office in Monmouth helped us book at room across the street at the King’s Head, a JD Weatherspoon hotel. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant, a veggie burger and chicken burger with chips (fries). After dinner, we were in the room when Erika surprised us with a phone call. Our attempt to call our pet sitter neighbors to check on the cats got no answer.
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SUNDAY, 5 DECEMBER 2004
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