To get away from the cold we stopped at The Grand Cafe for afternoon tea. Well we both ended up getting coffee and I tried clotted cream for the first time. Highly recommend it! For dinner we went to Old Tom's Pub. The have mostly thai food, kind of random but it was actually really good. I had the red curry.
The next morning we rented a car and headed to the Cotswolds, in a Fiat to be exact.
The Cotswolds are a bunch of small towns in the hills west of London. It was fun to drive around the towns. They are all very close together so we got to get out and walk around every 10-15 minutes. Some of the towns we visited were Bourton-on-the-Water, Chipping Campden, Stow-on-the-Wold and Slaughers. Bourton-on-the-Water is know as the Venice of the Cotswolds. There is a steam the runs through the town.
After driving around the Cotswolds we had a late lunch at Daylesford Organic Farm. They have their own grocery store and a farm on the grounds as well. I loved the atmosphere but the food was just okay for the price.
After lunch we headed to our hotel in The Forest of Dean. We stayed at The Speech House, Adam found a living social deal and it worked out really well. There were a couple corky things about the hotel but overall we really enjoyed our stay. They had a great breakfast that was included in our rate and a complimentary bottle of wine at their restaurant. They also had bikes that you could use, so on Saturday we did a 10 miles bike ride around The Forest of Dean. It rained on and off all weekend but once we got going the sun ended up coming out and ended up being a lot of fun. The trails are really well maintained and seems like they have a lot of different trail to choose from.
On Sunday we headed out and drove to Bath where we went to church at Bath Abbey and went to the Roman Baths. We toured the Roman Bath's and the tickets come with an audio guide which was very informative.
Adam in front of Bath Abbey
After grabbing lunch in Bath we headed to Stonehenge. It is amazing to read about how the stones got there, or how they think. Even after all these years, researcher really don't know what the purpose of the stones were. Most believe it was some type of religious area and maybe used as a burial and or a place of healing. We decided not to pay to go all the way up, yes you have to pay to see the stones... We read there was a road that runs right next to Stonehenge but it was closed. We did manage to snap a picture from the distance. Looking back we probably should have just spent the couple pounds to get a closer look...next time.
That raps up the trip. After Stonehenge we drove back to Oxford, dropped of our rental and took the train back to London. Overall we had a great weekend exploring part of England's countryside, even if it did rain all weekend.
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