Cotswolder Travel Guide

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810-1865) wrote the novel “Cranford” (published in 1853), a comic picture of life in an English village in the mid 1800s. She wrote her novels just after Jane Austen (1775 - 1817) novels were written.

The first season of Cranford comes to PBS in North America in May (airing May 4, 11, and 18) in three episodes. From the PBS site: “Welcome to Cranford, circa 1840…a rural English town where etiquette rules, undergirded by a healthy amount of gossip. ” Staring: Judi Dench, Philip Glenister, Francesca Annis, Michael Gambon. Read more on the PBS site.

Cranford was filmed in the historic Wiltshire village Lacock, just north of Bath. We visited Lacock a few years ago.

The novel Cranford was adapted for TV by the BBC and shown in five parts at the end of last year in England. Read more on the BBC site. A second season will be shown on the BBC for Christmas 2009.

If you can’t wait, it is already on DVD - Cranford on DVD.

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We are working on creating our Cotswolder website, a travel guide for the Cotswolds in England. We plan to launch the site in June.

I will be posting weekly to this Cotswolder blog with posts about England, travel to England, the Cotswolds, or experience England when you are not there.

I moved my Views from the Slow Lane blog from slowtrav.com (my old website) to sloweurope.com (my new website). This blog focuses on European travel and European vacation rentals. Come and see us there: Views from the Slow Lane.

We have been home for several weeks - recovered from jetlag, unpacked, bonded with the cat, got the leak under the sink fixed - and are back into our routine. I am happy to be back in my nice home office! I have been working on the content for the “Cotswolder” website and hope to have it ready in another month or two.

Here is a good article about vacation rentals for two in England: 20 Romantic Cottages for Two, Treat your loved one to a romantic Valentine’s getaway in a bolthole for two. From a converted dovecot to a former coastguard station, Annabelle Thorpe picks 20 unique country retreats which are all available in February. The Observer, Sunday January 13 2008.

I am making a list of my favorite vacation rental agencies and other resources for finding vacation rentals in the Cotswolds - comparing websites, comparing prices for US agencies who represent England agencies (I am surprised at how much you can save by booking with the English agency). I am also writing up descriptions of our favorite Cotswolds towns and activities. I will post on this blog when I get the new pages added.

Chris and Frank are in Paris

Chris, a SlowTrav moderator, and her husband Frank are in Paris for three weeks. I have been following along on her blog The Best Trip Ever. The weather has been colder and wetter than she expected, especially compared to their California weather at home, but the trip sounds relaxed and delightful.

More About Jane Austen

I uploaded my collection of Jane Austen photos to Cotswolder. Over the years we have been to Steventon where she was born and lived for the first part of her life, Adlestrop in the Cotswolds where she visited her uncle, Bath where she lived after leaving Steventon, Chawton where she moved to after Bath (her father died and she moved with her mother and sister to live near her brother), and Winchester Cathedral where she is buried. We have not seen the house she lived in at Winchester for the last few months before she died and we still have to see some southern England sights that she would have seen.

I found a good “Jane Austen” walk from her home in Chawton on a Hampshire tourist website. Literary Walks in East Hampshire: A Walk from Chawton to Farringdon (a PDF file opens).
“…and the plan is that we should all walk with her to drink tea at Faringdon” Letter to Cassandra, 29th May 1811.

Church in Steventon where Jane Austen’s father was the Rector.

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We left the Nailsworth cottage on Monday around noon and drove to Gatwick. It was a three hour trip: two and a half hour drive, half an hour at a M&S motorway stop for a sandwich. This was my first time driving this close to London and on the M25 (London area ring road). The driving is more intense closer to London - more cars, faster drivers - and the roundabouts are less casual. You have to know which lane to be in for your exit and if you get into the wrong one, people do not like to let you change lanes.

The last two trips, when flying from Gatwick, we stayed at the Alexander House, a beautiful country house hotel in Turners Hill, about ten minutes from Gatwick. This time we stayed in their sister hotel, Langshott Manor, a 16th century manor house on the outskirts of Horsley, ten minutes from Gatwick.

Langshott Manor, hotel near Gatwick

The hotel was very nice. It is small - 22 rooms and a restaurant - and even though it is very close to the airport and on the edge of Horsley, it is in the beautiful West Sussex countryside with a few acres of beautiful gardens.

We checked into the hotel, walked around the gardens, then took our bags to the airport. British Airways offers evening checkin, the night before your flight. The airport was empty and the checkin went quickly. This meant we were checked in and had our boarding passes, so would have an easier time in the morning.

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I have a lot more time to spend at the computer now that we don’t have to spend the day getting ready for a hike, doing a hike, recovering from a hike, planning the next day’s hike. Plus we have about 1 1/2 hours more daylight now than when we arrived. In early January it was dark by 5pm, now it is light until after 6pm.

Today was beautiful and sunny, so I took photos of the plants blooming in the garden. Have a look - Eastview Cottage Garden. I included a couple of photos of Whiz, the cat next door, who has finally got used to us and comes for regular visits.

We did our last visit (for this trip) to Cirencester and saw something we had never noticed before. Some of the older houses, at the end of Black Jack Street on the way to Cecily Hill and Cirencester Park, have built-in boot scrapers by the front door.

House in Cirencester. Notice the built-in boot scrapers.

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I can’t remember when they brought in the One Bag Rule in UK airports, but it was in response to some terrorist incident. It is always difficult to work out the rational that airport security uses these days, but I think this is to make the security lines move faster.

The first time we had to deal with this was last summer, flying through Gatwick to Geneva. At that time, if you were connecting in any UK airport, you were allowed only one carryon bag. If you flew to the UK and did not connect to another flight, you could have the normal two bags, but could only have one bag when returning via the UK airport.

I am a disorganized mess when I fly. Anyone looking at me would assume it was my first international flight because I obviously don’t know what I am doing. I get on the plane with computer equipment, piles of books and magazine, iPods, DVDs, a knitting project (heaven forbid that I be bored for one minute!), extra sweaters (what if I get cold?), a change of clothes (our luggage gets delayed one time in three when flying to Europe), a packed lunch in case they forget our vegetarian meals, and usually a work project that I am convinced I will do on the flight (I never do). Since December 2006, when those planes were kept on the runways for 8 - 10 hours and passangers had no food or water, I also carry a big bottle of water (purchased in the airport) and enough Granola bars to feed a large family.

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The last week of a long trip is always a strange time for me. When we first started taking yearly trips to Europe in 1996, they were eight to ten weeks long. A few years later, when we were both busy with work, we shortened our travel time and took four to five week trips. This year I wanted a long trip, a mini “moving there” experience, so we did a nine week trip. Instead of moving around in one or two week increments like we used to do, we spent eight weeks in one cottage.

Nine weeks is a long time. I miss my cat. We had thought of bringing Buddy with us, but only if we were going to stay here for the year. I miss my house. And my friends in Santa Fe. And being able to pick up the phone and call friends in the same (or close to) time zone. I didn’t vote in the New Mexico primary. I didn’t watch the Academy Awards.

Then there is the other component. “I can’t have been here for 8 weeks already! I still have not done x, y and z.” I wanted to meet Felicity for tea in Chipping Campden, drive to north London for Sunday lunch with Beebee. At least we went to a GTG lunch in London our first week, met up with Amy and Larry in London another time, spent the weekend with Valerie and Bryan who flew up from Italy, spent a day with Wendy and Richard, and have had several visits with Jonathan and Philippa (all friends from the Slow Travel community).

It has been a wonderful trip and we have had a great time. This photo is from our one trip to the Northern Cotswolds, when Valerie and Byran came for the weekend.

Snowdrops in Adelstrop, near Stow-on-the-Wold. February 2008.

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I travel with my iPod loaded up with TV shows and movies that I watch on the iPod or with the iPod hooked up to aTV set using a Monster cable (takes output from the iPod and displays it on a TV set). * Blog entry updated Feb 24 with new info on this cable. The image quality of the TV shows is very good and it is convenient watching them this way. If you travel with DVDs, you have to watch them on your computer because they will not play on European DVD players. North America is a different “region” from Europe and most DVD players play one region only. You can find software for your computer that lets it play both regions.

In Europe, the connectors on the back of a TV set are different than in the US. They use SCART connectors to attach DVD players, Video, Satellite boxes, etc. to the TV. My Monster Cable came with a SCART adapter, but if yours doesn’t, these adapters are easy to find.

We just finished the first season of “Mad Men” from AMC. I bought it at home on iTunes and put it on my iPod, then connected it to the TV set in the vacation rental to watch the episodes. (Great show!)

BBC has announced that it is going to sell its TV shows on iTunes, but only in the UK. The iTunes software is the same in North America and the UK, but your account determines what you can purchase. If you have a US address and credit card, you only see the things sold in the US. Recently iTunes brought US TV shows to the UK, but they more expensive in the UK. We pay $1.99 per episode, but in the UK it is £1.89 - almost double the price.

Read more on the BBC website: BBC TV programmes put on iTunes. BBC shows including Life on Mars and Little Britain have been made available to download from digital store iTunes.

I hope that they bring the BBC TV shows to the US iTunes, but until then I am going to see if I can do something with my current UK address and my UK credit card to get a UK iTunes account and download the last version of Spooks (which is not out on DVD until October).

One would think that I only came to England to watch TV and movies. I assure you this is not the case, but these winter evenings are long! Hiking and exploring during the day, vegging out in front of the TV or reading books at night.

* Note: The Monster Cable (Monster AI ITV IP-10 iTV Link for iPod) that I use only works with older iPods (the iPod Video and iPod Photo). Steve has the iPod Classic (the new one - confusing name) and it does not work with that. Specs from Monster.

Apple now sells a cable to connect both the new iPod (iPod Classic) and the older iPods (iPod Video) to a TV set.

A quick post to say what a great trip we are having! We had a week of sunshine and mild weather, but now it has turned colder. Today was sunny, but cold.

Our friends Valerie and Bryan, who used to live near us in Albuquerque but now live in Italy, came for the weekend during the great weather. We spent a day touring this area, a day up to Stow-on-the-Wold exploring that area, and a day in Bath. This was their first trip to England and will now think of it as muddy, but sunny and mild!

Steve pranged the car!! In 12 years of trips to Europe, this is the first time we hit something. It was only a grassy side of the road, but the car is low slung and apparently made of plastic, so we broke a fog light and the whole nose of the car. A guy from AA came out and fixed it with cable ties (really!!) and we were back on the road. I had an interesting conversation with National Car Rental at Gatwick where they told me we could bring the car in but they would not refund any money (we have two weeks left on the prepaid rental) and would not give us a new car because, since we had caused this damage, we were deemed bad drivers. We got insurance on this rental, but did not get the extra insurance they try to sell you (so we have a large deductible), and they treat you like you did not insure anything. Interesting!

I know I said this would be a short post, but now that I am typing …. I have been driving! I can drive in England!! We found some quiet country roads and I drove. The next time I was over confident and in busier traffic. I bounced off a curb (these roads are narrow!) and did a left turn into the wrong lane (but there was no traffic). I was shaking when I finished the drive. Since then I have driven several times.

My mission was to drive from the cottage to the Waitrose in Stroud and back. I figured if I can drive out to do the grocery shopping, then I am set. It went well. I don’t feel relaxed when driving, because of the whole “other side of the road” thing and the narrow lanes, but I feel like I can do the driving. After all, I love to drive in the US where we have a thing called a “shoulder” so if you drift for six inches, you don’t hit a curb or a stone wall (or on-coming traffic). Driving here has an extra dimension of intensity.

If you saw the lane our cottage is on, you would be very proud of me for driving. The lane is very steep - seems like a 45 degree angle, but I know it can’t be. It is also narrow with a nice stone wall on the edge. When you get to the top, you have about a mile on a one lane road where one car barely fits, let alone two passing each other. But, there are pullouts.

We have decided to go home as planned in just over two weeks. We had thought of staying longer, but I am missing the cat (Buddy) and other Santa Fe things. Plus we have a trip in the first week of April to Savannah for the SlowTrav GTG, then to Atlanta and after that will probably spend a few days up in North Carolina.

Today we went to the Stroud Saturday Farmers’ Market to get our vegetables for the week, then up to Miserden, a small village north of Stroud and Bisley that we had never been to. There are some good hikes from the village. It was beautiful with lovely woods and lakes and a charming village. The church is Norman and the churchyard was full of snowdrops (which are blooming everywhere this month). We did a short walk because we lost a couple of hours dealing with the car “accident”.

More later because this was just a short post to let our friends know we are still here! :)

The towns of Stroud and Nailsworth are in steep river valleys. Two hundred years ago this was an industrial area with many mills on the rivers. They made cloth, walking sticks, umbrellas. The mills used the rivers for power. Villages formed on the steep hillsides above the mills.

Part of the Cotswold Canals runs down the Stroud valley, at one time connecting the River Severn and the River Thames. The canal was a main transporation link for this industrial area. It is being restored, but British Waterways just pulled their funding, so the restoration which was planed to be completed in ten years will take longer. There is a canal tunnel that runs from Sapperton to Coates for over two miles (3817 yards, 2.16 miles). The tunnel has collapsed in parts, but each end of it has been restored. There are good pubs at each end (The Bell in Sapperton and Tunnel House Inn near Coates) and good trails along the canal. Perfect for a hike and then a pub lunch.

But how did I get onto canals? This post is about donkeys!

Many of the mills are still here, but now they are apartments, offices, workshops. The steep river valleys still have steep walking paths connecting the villages with the valley floor.

Tonight on the BBC news there was a story about people in Chalford, a small town just up the valley from Stroud, where the hill is so steep that many residents can only get to their houses by a walking path - Shoppers seek donkey for bag help.

Residents of Chalford on Rack Hill have to carry their groceries on foot up the 100 meter path (that does not sound that long to me, but I guess if it is steep and you are carrying stuff, it is a hike). They have decided to get a donkey from a donkey sanctuary and use it for village transport.

In Bradford-on-Avon, on the River Avon a few miles from Bath, the weavers’ cottages are on a hillside overlooking the town. Small pedestrial lanes connect the rows of cottages. When Steve and I first saw this area - we were having lunch in the tea room and the man at the next table told us about the weavers’ cottages and how to find them - we decided we had to live in Bradford-on-Avon, in a weavers cottage. I watched the Bradford rental listings for a year and never saw one of them for rent.

Bradford-on-Avon Weavers’ Cottages

Since then we have found similar hillside weavers’ cottages in other areas. There is a small area in Nailsworth, on the hillside above Egypt Mill. And I guess there is one in Chalford (we will go check it out and report back).

In other news, there is a cycle/walking path connecting Bristol and Bath, but the city council wants to run busses on part of it. There was a big protest recently because people feel this will drastically change the nature of this path. Walkers and bikers will have to dodge buses. But the traffic is very thick and the council sees this as a way of making the bus system work.

Maybe they could take a lesson from Chalford and try carts pulled by donkeys?