Oxford and the cute Cotswalds

Driving through England is a similar experience to driving through Sydney. The trick, be aggressive, be be aggressive. The motorways were congested but not annoyingly so. The real challenge comes later getting through the windy C roads...

Our last day in London after picking up the car was meant to be spent at Windsor Castle, but due to the car drama we hit the road just on Windsor closing time. We plan to do Windsor as we go around the South of England next month. We headed straight to Oxford, checking into our B&B and hit the town for a pub dinner, and welcomed the not London prices.

Day 1

We were greeted with another hearty English breakfast. Whilst these breakfasts are delicious they are just too much. Amy has now opted for the vegetarian version every morning and this still keeps us going until about 3 in the afternoon.

The Radcliffe Camera is a private reading room.

We headed to Oxford University, where we experienced immense regret about how we spent our early 20’s and why they weren’t spent studying here. We agreed we will encourage our children to study here in the aim of living vicariously through them.

 

It was the start of semester so it was very busy with people moving into their colleges and lots were closed to the public for this reason. Nevertheless we still got to see a few and they were really something special.

ANU eat your heart out...

The original lecture room at Oxford

We left around lunch time and drove up the road to Stow-On-The-Wold, had cream tea (scone with clotted cream, strawberry jam and tea) and walked and explored this gorgeous little town. We started the great jam and cream debate as it turns out Amy goes with Jam on the bottom and cream on the top and Simon does the opposite. As with all things we consulted Google to determine who was wrong or right. Turns out that neither of us were, but the great debate still lives on and I actually recommend this as a read on the subject– it will blow your mind that someone has done university research on this topic. Sure enough 15 minutes later the table beside us got into the same argument, although 2 to 1 did it Amy’s way…

Gulliver...

We then drove to Chipping Campden, which was breathtaking, just a quaint and unspoilt little English village. It was a shame we didn’t have the daylight to explore here longer. As we wandered around a church we found the most glorious landscape with bright green grass, sheep and ruins. It was quintessential England, and a postcard moment for us. 

We jumped back in Maddy the Mondeo (we named her in Oxford) and drove to Stratford upon Avon to our next B&B.

 

Gulliver in Maddy the Mighty Mondeo

 Day 2

The morning started with us drying our handwashing from the night before with a hairdryer, there are some truly glamorous moments in our travels. We met some Canadians over breakfast who told us about Warwick Castle and it sounded good, but we realised it was going to be about $80 for us both to enter – a little pricey. After some internet investigation we found that selected Kellogg’s products were offering a 2 for 1 entry coupon. We drove to Tesco, bought a box of fruit loops and received our voucher. Winning at budget saving! Now we have a random pack of fruit loops in the car, perhaps it will be handy in a food emergency or something?!

Doesnt get any more British

Stratford-Upon-Avon is famous as Shakespeares birthplace and city of residence and you can spend the day just exploring the town and the Shakespeare sights. Again, everything costs and costs big so we chose not to spend $40 each on seeing all the Shakespeare houses and opted for just Anne Hathaways Cottage (no not the Oscar winning actress, Shakespears wife). You could see the outside of most places but were just unable to go in or see the gardens. Anne Hathaways Cottage was really beautiful and the gardens provided some well-deserved relaxation time. We picked an apple to eat from the apple trees, went for a wilderness walk, and sat in the grounds in a beautifully constructed vine garden hut where we listened to Shakespeare sonets. 

The walk to each Shakespeare place took us right through the town and we took it easy enjoying the gorgeous little shops and walking along the river. We stopped at Shakespears birthplace, Halls Croft (where his daughter lived), Nash’s House (where he died) and of course Anne Hathaway’s House. For lunch we stopped for the “Worlds best traditional Cornish pastie”. Really you can’t go past somewhere claiming this, we are still not sure by whom this was voted… The pastie was good, but neither of us are experts so feel it inappropriate for us to weigh in on how it scores on the world scale of Cornish pasties. In fact we don’t even know the difference between a regular pastie and a Cornish pastie. 

Anne Hathaways House

We enjoyed a relaxed dinner at the oldest pub in town, Thatchers Inn complete with a thatched roof. Being so old it had very low ceilings and Simon just grazed the top, and needed to duck significantly for the ceiling beams and doorways. The waiter summed it up perfectly when seeing Simon at a doorway by saying “Jesus”!! Well Simon may not be Jesus but he sure is tall. Simon is starting to feel a little like Gulliver in some places.

Anne Hathaways House and Garden

Day 3

We got up early to get to Warwick castle at opening time. We arrived along with half of England’s school children. My thoughts go out to the teachers of the world - you truly are remarkable!

  

Warwick is privately owned making it more of a ‘historic amusement park’ then just a restored castle. We spent about 5 hours here and could have spent 7 with live shows, gorgeous gardens and an open castle. This is definitely worth a day out.

We arrived at our destination in York after navigating some seriously narrow streets and some crazy drivers.

Parting Thoughts

• We really would have like to see more of the Cotswalds, particularly the unspoilt towns.
• Teachers do a miraculous job at herding cats.
• We are still unclear on whether the jam or cream comes first, and both of us feel very strongly about the way we do it and are not prepared to comprimise our positions
• How do these little towns even exist?

Lessons Learnt

• No one indicates
• Speed limits are optional
• Roundabouts are more frequent and more confusing than in Canberra (no im not kidding)
• Fuel is horrifically expensive
• Castles when done properly are freaking sweet
• Simon needs to walk around stooped 24/7 to avoid head banging

Xoxo Amy and Simon