England - Cotswolds by Hire Car

Cotswolds by hire Car – Monday 4th August 2008
We are staying at Burford (Gateway to the Cotswold) at the Westview B & B http://www.west-house.co.uk, as you will see on the website it is lovely and in a central location hence we have decided to stay another night. We started the day with a mammoth 4 course breakfast, which saw us through the day! (of course another good reason to stay another night ;-).

Interior View!!

Today we went to the Cotswold Weavers(www.naturalbest.co.uk),
Stowe -on-the-wold, Moreton-in-Marsh, Snowhhill Lavender to visit Steve R's good mate Charlie farmer (www.snowhill-lavender.co.uk), Chipping Norton and finally Stratford-upon-Avon. Steve's been enjoying the challenge of hire car gadgets all in different places than u would normally expect to find and a strange place for reverse!!

The general rural rolling country side looks a lot like home, however the villages and towns are steeped in history and are very charming. There are many churches!
www.oxfordshirecotswolds.org

I really enjoyed seeing all the texiles at the Cotswolds weavers, the fabrics and colours were beautiful. We also found out talking to the owner that top label fashion companies also find them useful & go through up to several hundred samples before picking one... crazy stuff but that is fashion...

Stowe, Morten-in-Marsh buildings are a continuation of the same appearance as Burford which are lovely to see, however the township itself is set up for the tourist market and things are very expensive. (steve found an antique table that monks had eaten off worth 125K ~ 375K NZ - wow what a deal haha. Not an ideal place for a bargain shall we say :-) Did do a little family research while in Stow, which was fun, as Steven had relatives working as stone mason's in the area in the early 1800's got a another step in the right direction to joining the dots on the family tree.

As Charlie farmer of the Lavender farm, was out hunting down parts for his harvester, we enjoyed our chat with his wife Alex.

Don't know if it was because it was raining or just the end of the day but we both were not to impression by Stratford on the Avon. Had dinner at one of the oldest pubs right in the centre – “The Old Thatched Tavern” which was one of a few building that had survived a town fire & dated from around mid 1400's the meal menu was much the same ;-) hey but tasty!! and then headed back to Burford.... and that’s another day!