Josh and I traveled to England last month for our first international film premiere for Unsung Hero, more on this later! As it just so happened, we had been planning a trip to England for several months already and were able to combine the trips into one. I had been planning our Cotswolds travel for a long time and I knew this is where we wanted to start our trip.
I am fully in my English cottage/gardening era. Blame it on countless viewings of The Holiday or the hustle and bustle of life in Nashville, but I can’t get enough of gardens, rolling hills and the like. Visiting the Cotswolds has been on my list for quite a while and I had dreams of a little cottage, walks through the countryside and lots of afternoon tea.
And that is exactly what we did.
Cotswolds Travel: where we stayed
My dream for the longest time was to visit Daylesford Organic, it is a glorious organic farm in the Cotswolds that has evolved into a beautiful lifestyle brand with food, shops, restaurants, cottages and more. Daylesford was a huge inspiration to me back when my sister and I had Simple Market (a small health food store) in our early twenties. We stayed at the Little Owl cottage and I went shopping at the market EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. I was in heaven.
Our cottage was more than enough room for us, beautifully decorated, every detail thought of (the fridge was stocked for us!) I was delighted with the high level of customer service, they really pampered us. The cottaged was absolutely filled with Daylesford Organic products, from pottery dishes to toiletries in the bathrooms.
Cotswolds Travel: itinerary
DAY ONE
We flew into London Heathrow mid-afternoon, then took an Uber to Oxford where we spent the night at the Mercure Oxford Hawkwell House Hotel. This was a great hotel, despite arriving in that weird in-between jet lagged time of day after an overnight flight. We ate dinner while watching the UK election debates, chatted with the hotel manager and observed the wildest funeral wake I’ve ever seen. The hotel staff was so apologetic, but we thought it was funny that there was a DJ and dancing all night long.
DAY TWO
Our day began with a full English breakfast. Josh was absolutely sold on this trip at this point, and then we were off to pick up our rental car. We had a little practice from our Cayman Islands trip earlier this year and have our little system down when it comes to driving on the wrong side of the road. Josh takes the wheel, we both pay full attention and I scream when necessary.
It was a less than a 10 minute drive to Blenheim Palace. This was a perfect little jaunt of drive time to get used to the car and the roads. We spent a good amount of the day at Blenheim and it was glorious! The birthplace of Winston Churchill, a beautiful palace and grounds and oozing with history. We visited their new exhibit on British fashion (so so good!), ate lunch and then took a long walk through the woods.
As we walked and talked, two WW2 history buffs, we of course spoke of Winston Churchill. I didn’t realize until this visit that he was supposed to inherit Blenheim Palace and become the next Duke of Marlborough. When his uncle (who was Duke) had a child when Churchill was in his 20s, this forever changed the course of history. I wondered what it would have been like for him to have taken over and Josh, wisely, noted that if Churchill had inherited the wealth and property from his family, the odds are high that his comfort would have kept him at Blenheim. We might be living in a very different world today (Man in the High Castle comes to mind…)
Something to noodle on.
DAY THREE
We spent the day at Hidcote Manor Gardens. A truly spectacular place to be. It took us hours and hours to walk around the grounds and see the different types of gardens. I bored Josh with my knowledge of types of trees (an amateur botanist, he is so lucky.)
After a light sprinkling of rain, it was time for us to find afternoon tea. Tisanes Tea Room in Broadway was perfect. They brought out an entire gluten free afternoon tea for us and it was the best we’ve ever tasted. I’ve been very inspired to start doing tea time at home now. Josh and Hugo are such big fans of it!
DAY FOUR
We drove over to Stow-On-The-Wold for some shopping, exploring and of course, more tea. There was a wonderful antique store that we spent a good amount of time going through, it simple things like that that I rarely make time for anymore (although, I did pop into an antique store this weekend at home and felt very proud of myself.) Sam Wilson was an absolute inspiration and I picked up some really lovely items, including this art, “Kitchen Garden” which is going in my kitchen at home.
Josh and I both love old churches and while we were shopping we could see a steeple from the window. We walked around the back to find this church. It was St. Edward’s Church and claims to be Tolkien’s inspriation for the Doors of Durin in the Lord of The Rings.
We finished the day at Bourton-On-The-Water which was as magical as you would imagine. The prettiest river runs all through town and there are places to sit and watch and be still.
We made one more garden visit to Snowshill Manor. I was sad to miss the lavender by only days, but we enjoyed the rest of the gardens.
DAY FIVE
It was time to leave the Cotswolds and start our trek back to London. We drove to Oxford and spent one night there. Oxford felt like a bit of a culture shock after days of seeing any people, suddenly we were surrounded by tourists everywhere! We ate at Vaults & Gardens Cafe for lunch, we then tried to get into some museums but everything was sold out for the day. We ended up at a delicious Lebanese restaurant for dinner, Comptoir Libanais.
And that wraps it up for Cotswolds travel, we were off to London from here. Look for my next post soon!
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