Author: Greg H

Wednesday, May 13 – I got nearly nine hours of sleep and woke feeling fully rested around 4 am. The songbirds were singing a symphony and dawn was beginning to crack. By 6 am we were both itching to get moving so we decided to walk the town before everyone else was up.

The night before we had decided to leave most of our belongings in the car and just bring in essentials for the night. That hadn’t included our rain gear and no more than a few blocks from our hotel, we realized that had been a mistake. We reversed course and made haste to the car to grab our raincoats and hats. We made it just before the showers turned into a legit downpour.

The weather here has been very reminiscent of home: don’t like the weather, just wait 5 minutes. Bands of showers passing by with intermittent sun breaks. Nothing that will slow down two native Oregonians!

Our hotel stay included breakfast, which didn’t begin until 7:30. After our early morning walk, we set up camp in the hotel lobby until the breakfast room opened. The breakfast was very impressive, with toast and coffee delivered as we sat down. I ordered the full English breakfast while Pam opted for Eggs Benedict. While waiting for our orders, there was a table with a variety of juices and another with pastries and fresh fruit. We were going to need to do a lot of walking today to offset the intake!

Had we been walking to our next stop, our path would have been chosen for us – a twelve mile hike to Broadway. With the car, we had the freedom to take a less direct route and so we headed for Morton-on-Marsh. We arrived in the town about 9 am and walked its main street taking in many shops as they were opening.

After exploring the town, we backtracked to stop at the Batsford Aurboretum and Garden Centre. Located on a hillside, the 60 acre grounds features rare trees from around the world. We spent over two hours walking its trails and had just come back to the cafe in the Garden Centre when a microburst hit, dumping a torrent of rain and at a quarter inch of hail amidst thunder and wind gusts. Our timing could not have been more perfect!

We left the arboretum and headed for Broadway, our home for the next two nights. Our reservations were at the Crown & Trumpet Inn, a 16th Century pub with 5 guest rooms upstairs. Our room had been renovated so that it had a large, modern bathroom, but everything else about it screamed historic. That started with the skeleton key to unlock the door – which was barely tall enough for me to go through without ducking. I’m not sure there was a straight wall or level floor anywhere in the building – but it was very charming and we both agree we like this much better than the beautiful hotel in Chipping Camden.

We ate dinner downstairs in the pub and then ventured out for an evening walk. We found where the Cotswold way leaves town and decided to follow it for a bit. We cut through fields of grazing sheep and discovered how England has public path rights of way through farmland.

May 11-12 – This spring, I had hoped to hike the Cotswold Way in Southern England, but an injury awaiting corrective surgery made that plan evolve. The original plan called for my girlfriend, Pam and I to walk the 102 mile trek over eight days, then rent a car and tour other parts of the region, Plan B called for picking up the car Day 1.

We departed Portland on Monday afternoon with a 3:30 flight to Iceland and then on to Gatwick airport in London. I enjoy flying Icelandair and making connections in the tiny airport in Reykjavik.

Our first flight was a little trying. We knew we needed to get some rest, as the flight was essentially a redeye, but we had several challenges: 1 – the screaming kid sitting two rows ahead of us. 2 – the guy in the middle seat behind us who snored like a freight train. 3 – given the time of year and the northerly route of the flight, we were in perpetual daylight. At least we thought so, because somehow I succeeded in booking seats in the only row of the plane that didn’t have windows. For Pam, who is slightly claustrophobic, that made issue #4. We learned that Snoreface (as we named him) was flying with a bunch of buddies to Copenhagen. The other guys with him spent a good deal of time discussing who was going to get stuck sharing a room with him.

We made it to London shortly after 11 am local time (3 am to our body clocks). Border entry and customs clearance was the fastest either of us had ever experienced.

Not so fast was finding our rental car, which required a tram ride to the opposite side of the airport. We picked up our little Mazda and began our 2 and a half hour drive to our first night’s accommodation in Chipping Camden.

Pam is our driver, as she has been to England several times before and is familiar with driving on the “wrong” side of the road. She claims that being left handed makes her naturally want to drive on that side of the road. We were both fighting sleep but fortunately she had more stamina than I and kept awake and alert for the drive. I tried to stay awake and keep her company but confess to nodding off briefly a few times.

Chipping Camden is a 17th Century market town. In it’s heyday, it was one of the most affluent areas in all of England thanks to it being a wool-growing capital. But when cotton from the Colonies was introduced, the rough fiber of wool lost favor to the newly introduced cotton fabrics. When that happened, the region ended up being frozen in time.

We stayed at a lovely hotel called the Cotswold House Hotel and Spa. It featured just 15 rooms, with ours looking out over the market square with it’s 16th century market building. The hotel had a beautiful garden in the back that you had to walk through to get from the car park.

We did a quick walk about the town and giant St. James Church. The structure was first constructed in the 14th Century and then added onto over the next 300 years.

We ended our walk at the pub across the street from our hotel and had a traditional “Sausage & Mash” dinner. I could barely keep my eyes open – having been up for the past 30 hours. By 7 pm, I was in bed and crashed for the night.