April in the Cotswolds

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The Cotswolds in April was fantastic! We have just spent a week here and had a great time. The weather was fine, we didn't even have a drop of rain.

We stayed in a lovely cottage that had just been refurbished, part of a block of four - Railway Cottages & Apartments at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, have a look at their website for more information: http://www.cotswoldsholidaysandlets.com/ . The village is very nice with good shops & eateries and the biggest market in the Cotswolds every Tuesday. Get some of the olives, sun-dried tomatoes & cashew nuts! Yummy!

Of course we visited all the well know places, Stow-on-the Wold, The Slaughters, Bibury, Naunton, and many others. It really is a picture postcard area.

What else did we do? Well we went to Oxford on the train for a day. Another wonderful city, slightly spoilt by the huge numbers of buses clogging up the centre. Needless to say we played the tourist and bought tickets for the open-top bus tour. A great way of gettings your bearings. Unfortunately the Ashmolean Museum was closed until October, but we enjoyed the Natural History Museum with all the dinosaurs. Then we had lunch across the road at the Eagle & Child. This was featured on the TV Lewis series, and was also famously frequented by the Oxford writers group The Inklings which included JRR Tolkein & CS Lewis. We had a great day out.
Bicester Outlet Village is near by http://www.bicestervillage.com/ , and if you are pining for a spending spree this is a good place to go. There are plenty of designer shops, including the latest one called Beach by Liz Hurley. We spent more than we intended!

Blenheim Palace is another must to visit when you are in the area. http://www.blenheimpalace.com/ , The outside facade and the gardens are stunning, but we were a bit disappointed with the interior, simply because there weren't many rooms open to visitors. But I can recommend the tea rooms!

We have been to this area before, but always love to return, I challenge anyone not to like it, its everyone's idea of England.

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