Picture 1: Mom and me at Hidcote gardens.
Picture 2-5: Hidcote gardens.

The weather/sky/sun etc. of England are just not conducive to taking pictures. Mom and I tried MANY MULTIPLE times today to get a decent picture of a Cotswold region landscape, with absolutely no luck. Picture 6 is the best I could get, taken looking out over a sheep pasture from the end of a garden at Hidcote. As you can see, the landscape bit in the back is still horrible but at least the pastoral scene in the foreground shows up well. The sheep were everywhere at Hidcote and making a lot of noise.

We started out today with a wonderful street-side breakfast at a coffeeshop in Cheltenham. The sun was shining (the first time that's happened during the morning on our trip) and we thoroughly enjoyed soaking it up while we had our pastries and coffee (for mom). We were, of course, wearing sunscreen. I'd hoped that, since this northern Europe climate is what I'm bred for, I wouldn't have to wear sunscreen - not true. I got a little pink in the face and a little tan in the feet over the several cloudy days we've had so far, so I've reluctantly been putting sunscreen on again.

After breakfast, we headed back out into the countryside and drove through the picturesque village of Bourton-on-the-Water, the "Venice of England!" Only called that because a stream ran right through the main square of town and along the main street. We stopped off in another village, Lower Slaughter, a little while later that had the same situation and made no claims to Venetian grandeur. Bourton-on-the-Water was quite charming but we just drove around the main square and continued on. We drove through Lower Slaughter and then made our way to Upper Slaughter, where we found a tiny car park in the middle of the village. We parked and, after taking a quick look at the exteriors of the hotel and manor house in Upper Slaughter, made our way along a footpath back to Lower Slaughter. It was a lovely walk and we got to walk through fields and pasture and through farmers' gates designed to stop sheep from wandering. Lots of fun! In Lower Slaughter, we took a look at the old mill and wandered along the river through the main part of the teeny tiny village. There were 10+ artists sitting around painting different aspects of the river and village and turned out there was a local art exhibition in the village hall! I took a quick look through the art pieces - very beautiful.

We left Upper Slaughter in search of lunch, which we finally got in a largish market town called Chipping Campden after driving through Stow-on-the-Wold and Broadway. Both of these towns were absolutely beautiful in very different ways. Stow was a large market town in the heyday of the Cotswold sheep industry so the huge market square is still there and now surrounded by craft stalls. Broadway, we think, was also a market town and so called because it has an incredibly wide (very rare in the Cotswolds!) main street lined with shops. Both were fun to drive through, but Mom and I were quite glad we stopped in Chipping Campden for lunch. It was a bit smaller with a less impressive center, and less overrun with tourists. We walked around at our leisure enjoying the beautiful yellow stone of the region and looking through shop windows, and had a delicious lunch in a small deli.

Then it was 4 miles up the road to the gardens at Hidcote manor. These were very much like the gardens at Wisley in that they were diverse and segregated into different gardens with different themes. The story of Hidcote is that it was owned by an American horticulturalist in the early to mid-20th century who then donated the estate to the National Trust. He started this idea of "rooms" in gardens and the National Trust has started developing the gardens back to what they looked like at their height in the 1930s. The gardens were obviously beautiful.

From Hidcote, it was just a 20 or so minute drive to Stratford-upon-Avon, where we checked into our hotel (fairly fancy!), walked around a bit, and got pub grub in The Thatch Tavern. We walked by the White Swan Hotel, Grandma and Grandpa, and will probably try to stop there for lunch tomorrow.