A Quick Tale of Three Cities

A Quick Tale of Three Cities                October 12, 2017

"To be anonymous and traveling in an interesting place is intoxicating."
Paul Theroux in The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey Around Great Britain

With our walking on the Cotswold Way finished, we turned our attention to a more urban experience by visiting Bath, the official end of the Way, as well as the cities of Winchester and London. 

Bath is a beautiful city, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and a gathering place for the well-heeled during the Victorian era.  
Spa and temple.  Bath takes its name from the Roman baths, built in the first century - and they are still viable, though not being used now.  But one could!  They don't leak, despite having been created nearly 2000 years ago.  What other man-made project has that longevity?  And the hot springs that fed them during the time of the Romans still spill steamy water out of the earth! The Romans had built not only the baths, but also temples at this location.  It was a place of leisure and worship.  Interesting combination.  We had a fascinating tour.  

                   Roman bath.  The water is green due to the sunlight. 

                      Roman artifact, the head of the goddess Sulis Minerva

Bath Abbey  was founded in the 8th century as a Benedictine monastery.  Its windows were blown out during the Nazi blitz but have been restored.  Despite the grandeur, it is very much a working Anglican parish church.  In fact, there was an all-day  meeting going on during our one full day in Bath.  Tourists couldn't enter until late afternoon, just in time for the evensong worship service at 5:30 pm.  Bruce and I appreciated being able to attend.  Such a graceful service with hauntingly beautiful choral music provided by the girls' and men's choirs.  

                                                   Bath Cathedral.

Grand townhouse architecture is another of Bath's features.  These stunning homes were built in the early 1800's using the local golden stone.  They are light and clean and everywhere!  Very impressive in scale.  

                                                The Royal Crescent

                    Samples of Bath's stunning architecture


Winchester.  The next city on our tour was Winchester.  I had visited last year and had been quite enamored.  I wanted Bruce to see it, and, as it wasn't far from Bath, we were able to easily include it in our itinerary.   

What I loved about Winchester is its proud but quiet antiquity, alongside a vibrant current culture of students and everyday life.  That could probably be said of many British cities, but this one seemed special to me.   It was the ancient Anglo-Saxon capital of Britain, reigned over by the beloved King Alfred during the late 800's.  The Romans had settled here, too, even earlier, laying out roads and setting up water systems.  The oldest continuously running private boarding school for high school age boys in England is Winchester College, founded in 1394.  We had a tour and learned that some of the buildings are original, including one of the dining halls!

                                  Bruce going into Winchester College.

We stayed in the same B&B where I had stayed last year, the lovely, casual old St. John's Croft, dating to the early 1700's and hosted by Dotty.  The house is decorated in "shabby chic" and is spacious and light-filled.  We were so comfortable there.   

                                      St. John's Croft B&B 

"Winchester Cathedral, you're bringing me down..."
Not really, but it's hard to get the words to the popular 1960's song out of your head.  A tour of the Cathedral will probably do it.  The tour guides are volunteers who are passionate and incredibly knowledgeable about the long and varied history of the church, one of the largest in Europe.  And there are so many stories to tell.  Like the time that the massive stained glass windows were destroyed by Cromwell's men in the 1600's.  The townspeople gathered up the bits of glass and saved them.  The window was later re-assembled in a random fashion which gives it a modern look.  One can see a bit of a face here or a cloak there.  

Part of the re-assembled East window at Winchester Cathedral

Jane Austen is buried in the Cathedral, and her corner draws lots of visitors.  I always feel rather disrespectful by walking on the tombstones which make up the flooring in many ancient churches.

We attended evensong in this cathedral, too, and had the pleasure of being seated right in the choir loft, just behind the choir members.  It was a special occasion when young boys, ages 5 & 6, are invited to spend the day singing with the boys' choir to see if they might want to join - and if the choir wants them to join :).  We could watch these kids during the service.  As Bruce noted, they are not all going to make it.  There were a few mischievous wigglers in the group!  

  The choir stalls in Winchester Cathedral where we sat for evensong

The water meadows are an area of town that provide a lovely walking venue.  We strolled on the path on Sunday, when lots of folks were out with dogs & kids.  One rambunctious pair of springer spaniels jumped joyously in and out of the water.  It was good to be walking again, this time without a real destination or a backpack.   

                        Along the water meadows in Winchester

London
The real highlight of our London excursion were two visits with our dear friends, Mary & John, one just after we arrived in England and the second just before we left.  They are a witty, generous, intelligent couple - and our mentors in their amazing curiosity and love of travel, despite being 85 & 90 years old!  

                  John, Mary, Bruce, & Linda:  we all like good food!

Of course, you can't go to London without seeing a show.  We chose Kinky Boots and loved it.  What a fun, uplifting message on several levels!  

Besides those, there were museums, massive and free, and lots of international food.  

                                       The Victoria & Albert Museum

                          The British Museum

                            Egyptian artifact in the British Museum

The whole experience - the countryside walking and the cities - was intoxicating.  What a great way for me to begin a new decade!  

Merrywalks

Merrywalks         October 4, 2017

The trick of successful walking, I always say, is knowing when to stop." 

Bill Bryson in Notes from a Small Island  

in front of our Birdlip B&B

Bruce and I stopped our walk on the Cotswold Way in Painswick yesterday.  It was only half of the 100-mile trail, but we had run out of time and had logged 55 miles on our fitbits.  The route had begun that day in Birdlip (we had to stay there, just for the name!).  It was a perfect day of hiking, bookending our perfect first day of walking a week ago.  We could see the end coming - with mixed feelings.  There is always a sigh of relief when you've finished something challenging, but we are sad to wind up this lovely week of rambling. 

             Remember Rick Charette's song, "Mud, Mud, I Love Mud?"

Yes, there have been muddy, windy, damp times, and we have wandered off the trail to our frustration, and we have developed toe problems (not serious).  By contrast, the terrain has been so pretty, gentle, and timeless; the people, so friendly and kind;  the towns so historic and charming.   In sum, the whole experience has been grand!

We have loved the act of walking, the motion of our bodies moving to a rhythm, breathing deeply of the fresh air and all the aromas that come along with it: moist, humusy earth; wet, autumn leaves; cedar and boxwood; cow manure (yes, I like that smell); soft, fallen apples.  

We have loved being outdoors.   The woodsy trails were very quiet - or enlivened with bird twitterings.  So peaceful.  The plant-life with that most English ivy and shiny holly; ripe blackberries (not as sweet as ours); annoying nettles; roses; spreading oaks and beech trees.  

We have loved the beauty, both the natural beauty with the green rolling hills and misty scenes and fields full of sheep, as well as the charming architecture with its iconic, golden limestone.

It has been fun to follow the guide book directions and to find the official trail symbols all along the way.  In fact, the whole week has seemed like a treasure hunt, looking for the next style or kissing gate or "copse" of woods or fence along a field, as described in our book.  The book didn't always agree with the trail markers - but we had the GPS when in doubt.  

the Cotswold Way sign painted onto a tree, showing the way

One of the best parts of the experience has been meeting the people who generously opened their homes to us, mostly through Airbnb.  What a cross-section of British life, from retired professionals, such as high school chemistry teachers and lawyers to popular musicians.  One fellow had been a high stakes advertising executive and shared a lot of his views on his career in London.  The couple whom we seemed to connect with the most were retired after 30 years of teaching and being house-parents in a private boys' boarding school.  They were unusually open and welcoming to us, and it was fascinating to learn a little of what that life is like (exhausting, for one thing!).  We can only imagine!  It had been a calling, really, and a life of service.  The Masterpiece Theater series, To Serve Them All My Days, immediately came to mind.  It was obvious that they had loved it and had been very good at it - and were enjoying being retired!

The dual English customs of a soothing hot cup of tea, available in every B&B room, as well as a relaxing pint at the nearby pub, developed into a nice daily rhythm for us.  

The pretty "wool" town of Painswick, where we stopped walking, is the half-way mark on the Cotswold Way.  It earned its wealth from the wool trade back in the 15th & 16th centuries and later from cloth-making.  Like most of the wool towns in the Cotswolds, it is quite unspoiled by modern development, even now.  

unusual "tabletop" tombs in the Painswick St. Mary's cemetery

Until recently, this crooked old building was the Painswick post office. 

Today we took a bus & a train to the city of Bath, the end of the 100-mile trail.  We have plans to spend a couple of nights in this UNESCO World Heritage city, before heading down to Winchester for 3 days, then back to London and home.  

                                  pretty house in Birdlip       

Guinness, Gammon, & Goujons

Guinness, Gammon, and Goujons           October 2, 2017

This is what my trusty Keen hiking boots looked like at the end of our walk on Saturday.  Yuk!  We'd had another great day, for the most part - but it had ended a bit raggedly.  

First of all, we knew that it would be a long hike from our Winchcombe BnB to the next closest accommodation that Bruce had been able to find (looking online before we left home).  Eight or nine miles, we figured.  Turned out to be 11 miles.  Much too long, but we kinda had to keep going to the already-booked BnB. 

We left Winchcombe, where "walkers are welcome" around 9 am.  (They seem to be welcome everywhere!) The trail had first taken us up, up across glorious and ubiquitous sheep pastures, along stone walls, through woods,  onto our first high hill of the day, outside of Winchcombe.   

At the top, we were rewarded with a Neolithic Long Barrow, which is a burial mound from 4000 years ago!  

              Belas Knap, 4000 year old Neolithic burial mound

                               One end of Belas Knap

It was not possible to go inside, but just seeing it and trying to wrap our minds around that antiquity was an experience.  It's situated on a rather remote ancient beacon site.   A young couple had impressively jogged there, going uphill, passing us along the way.  We had a chat with them at the barrow.  They are hoping to flee the endless cloudy, damp English weather by moving to Germany.  He's an electrician and figures that he can find a job there, as long as he speaks German, which both he and his girlfriend are studying.  

After some lovely flat terrain, we headed down, down and then up again onto Cleeve Hill, the highest point in this area.  On the common area of Cleeve Hill, we passed many weekenders of all ages out for a brisk walk with their dogs and kids. One part of the Cleeve could be accessed by car, and an improbably located golf course was pretty busy in its windy locale.  It was curious to see it sharing the hilltop area with ramblers like us, as well as roaming sheep.  We hoped we wouldn't get hit on the noggin by an errant golf ball! 

                      Lofty golf course on Cleeve Hill


Around 2 pm, we stopped at the club house for tea and eccles cake.  

The next attraction on the trail was a breezy panoramic site, looking past the city of Cheltenham, over to the Malvern Hills, possibly to Wales, which isn't far away.  

                Panorama table on Cleeve Hill viewpoint


As the day wore on, our niggling worry was that neither our guide book nor the Cotswold Trail gave any indication of how we would get down into the town of Charlton Kings, our destination for the night.  As long as we kept to the trail, we were in pretty good shape - but the trail didn't go through Charlton Kings itself, just nearby - somewhere!  Again, we were faced with having to go off-trail.  We remembered how well that had worked a few days previously!  Bruce's GPS got a good workout as he tried deciphering a route for us.  Finally, we asked a passing walker.  He advised to begin going down off the escarpement right then on a side footpath.  For a moment, it seemed that it would be pretty easy:  just go downhill.  We could see the city of Cheltenham right below us.  Charlton Kings, a suburb, had to be nearby, as he had indicated.  

                      Not all of the sights are ancient

    Alas, not as easy as we had hoped.  We got lost again, ending up in a field with a gang of horses and a very wet piece of pasture to cross over.  I gingerly stepped in, having no idea that I'd immediately sink into the muck up to my ankles, almost losing the shoe off my foot.  My flimsy walking stick snapped in two as I plunged onto drier ground.  

                              Bruce and horse companions

Looking around, it seemed that we were surrounded by thick hedges on all sides of the field.  Just then, Bruce spotted two women across the field.  He approached and learned that one was the owner of the farm that we had encroached upon.  She was a horsey lady, slim and attractive in her wellies, but no-nonsense!  She advised that, since it was getting on in the afternoon, we follow her and her young companion down off the hill to the road leading to town where we'd find a pub, could have a drink, and call a taxi to take us to our next BnB!   

 So that's how our day ended.  A lovely young Pakistani taxi driver picked us up at the Lion Inn - after we'd had a Guinness and a robust meal of gammon (ham) and goujons (breaded chicken pieces) - and took us to yet another elegant Airbnb, the home of a retired creative advertising executive.  We tried to not besmurch our surroundings with our mud, leaving our boots by the door.   Hot tea and hot showers, plus a good night's rest, restored us.  So ended another adventure on the Cotswold Trail!  In the end, we were grateful, once again, for the timeless beauty of this part of the world and for the kindness of strangers.   

                         Our AirBnB, a welcome sight

English Castle

English Castle                  October 1, 2017

                            The impressive gate house at Sudeley Castle.

After three days of walking, Bruce & I took a "rest day".  We were staying at another lovely Airbnb, this one in Winchcombe.  (We have had such good luck with Airbnb's in England.  They are very high quality!)

We needed a day to relax a bit, to do some laundry and to read.  One thing about Airbnb, however, is the feeling that hosts don't really want you hanging around their house all day.  So, we set out to explore a bit and ended up visiting a castle!  

                                                      Sudeley Castle

Sudeley Castle is located on the edge of town.  It is privately owned and is maintained as a residence, which is unusual. Probably its most unusual feature, however, is the fact that it's the only private property where a British queen is buried. Henry VIII's last queen, Catherine Parr, outlived him.  When she died in 1548, she was buried at Sudeley, her home at the time, and she is entombed in the chapel on the castle grounds in a properly ornate corner.

    Queen Catherine's resting place at Sudeley Castle in Winchcombe

There are many other royal connections at Sudeley, both ancient and modern, explained in the wide range of artifacts on display in the museum part of the castle.  One of Catherine's predecessors, Anne Boleyn, had visited the castle with Henry (before he ordered her to be decapitated!).   Their daughter, later to become Elizabeth I, spent time there with Catherine, her step-mother.  Apparently Elizabeth got too cozy with Catherine's new husband and was banished from the castle. 

             Creative nod to Elizabeth I's connection to Sudeley Castle.

King Richard III, subject of Shakespeare's play, owned the castle at one point. 

Over the years, the castle fell on hard times.  The Civil War in the 1600's didn't help.  Much of the estate was demolished.  In the last century, the castle was used as a hospital during WW I.  Around 1970, it was inherited by a British aristocrat and his American wife. The story reminded me of Downton Abbey and Lady Cora Crawley, also an American who married into British aristocracy.  In typical American enthusiasm, the new lady of the house tuned in to the public's curiosity of this way of life and developed part of the castle as a museum, while also opening up some of the private quarters.  Weddings and events take place there, too, and it all helps to pay the maintenance bills, I'm sure.  

         15th century St. Mary's Chapel on the grounds of Sudeley Castle 

One of the quirky features that I especially enjoyed was a display telling the story of Brock, the current family's pet badger, back in the 1960's & 1970's.  Apparently, the dad in the family, Mark Dent-Brocklehurst, loved surrounding himself with various critters, even though the family lived in the London section of Kensington.  One day he brought home a baby badger, which grew up with the two children in the nursery.  The nanny would take the children out to the park - and Brock along with them.  Over time, Brock got bigger and bigger - just like the kids, except that Brock took on his nocturnal behavior, as well as nipping with his sharp teeth at the ankles of unsuspecting guests! Finally, Brock was taken to Sudeley to live out the rest of his days.  

                              Brock, the pet badger

Being Americans ourselves, we seem to have a fascination with this life of class privilege, stretching back for centuries.  Visiting Sudeley Castle was a lovely way to learn more about it.    

Back on Track

Back on Track               September 28, 2017

Well, yesterday was not so perfect!  In fact, by the time it ended, I was having second thoughts about our excursion.  The day had begun well enough, with another rather misty morning and a slow gradual climb.  A growing vista of the town of Broadway and surrounding sheep pastures emerged, looking like a Gainsborough painting.  So far, so good.

Having consulted our guide book, we had decided to take a detour from the Cotswold Way to visit a nearby village with an estate, said to have "an almost perfect example of a Cotswold manor house".   One of our reasons for planning to walk just 5-6 miles/day was to give us an opportunity to visit sights along the way, something that we had missed on our previous long walks.

                                       Snowshill Manor, the newer part

The Snowshill Manor House is a quirky place, owned by the National Trust and therefore in good hands.  It had been owned previously by Charles Paget Wade, a WW I veteran, whose family wealth had allowed him to collect stuff to his heart's content.  And his heart's content was a LOT.  In fact, he had bought the manor house not to live in, but to house his growing collection.  He himself lived a frugal existence in pretty primitive conditions in a cottage behind the manor house.  His main interest was to collect beautiful handmade items, like old bicycles, hand-carved items, huge thread winding forms, Chinese cabinets, and decorated wooden shields.  The manor house, the oldest part of which dates back to the 1500's, is filled to the brim with artifacts.  We began with lunch in the tearoom and then spent over an hour exploring the collection and the gardens.  By 2 pm, we were back on our way on the trail.

Now comes the tricky part.  On the way to the manor house, the trail had descended rather steeply down slippery, muddy tracks.  My knee had suddenly begun complaining quite loudly, a new problem.  I borrowed the walking stick that Bruce had picked up in the woods and limped along.  After our detour, it seemed that it might be wise to take a shortcut back to the trail.  Therein lay our downfall.  We began wandering up and down hills and across fields, trying to find our new way.  There are many, many public footpaths in England!  Not all of them are labeled with names.  Bruce and I differed on our ideas of the correct direction to take.

Meanwhile, the sky was getting darker, and we hadn't seen any other walkers for a long time.  The wind was blowing fiercely, and it was a bit lonely up there on the open fields.  Finally, Bruce pulled out his "device", never far away, and used his GPS to determine how to get to the next village - just about the time that it began raining.  We stood under a tree, pulled on raincoats, and shortly afterward came upon a Cotswold Way sign, to our great relief.

                                          Staying warm in the rain

We still had quite a long way to walk to get to that night's lodging, a farmhouse right on the trail.  Luckily, my knee was feeling better - for no reason that I could determine.  I was grateful, in any case.   We passed through the lovely - but eerily quiet - small town of Stanton.  To our dismay, no tea room or open pub.  Needing a bit of sustenance, we sat on a bench in the rain and nibbled on cheese and apples, wishing it had been a beer by a cheery fire.  We kept going and came to Stanway, passing the cricket pitch donated by J.M. Barrie and the sweet little church.

                            The charming old church in Stanton

The day's last bit of excitement came when we noticed a sign, warning that the next part of our trail went through a field with a bull.  We had read that more Brits are killed by stampeding cattle than by car crashes (can that really be true ??).  In any case, we crept quietly through the field, emboldened by the awareness that our BnB lay just beyond it.  It was 6 pm when we dragged in at Maggie and Mick's Wood Stanway Farmhouse B&B.  Our fit bits registered 12 miles. We were completely done in!  This 400 year old building lacked the elegance of our recent accommodations - but it had one essential ingredient: a big, deep tub!  I soaked in the hottest water possible and then fell into bed for the best sleep in days.

Today turned out much better.  It was a beautiful day, sunny and fresh and moist after the rain.  We breakfasted with 2 couples from Wales, sibs and their spouses. We were fascinated to learn that the sibs had grown up speaking Welsh as their first language, which is related to Breton and Cornish. Apparently the Welsh government is trying to promote the continuance of the language with immersion schools as a choice.  These four hardy souls planned to walk the whole 100-mile stretch of the Cotswold Way.

Bruce and I had an easy day planned.  After walking for an hour or so, we stopped at a tiny, ancient, Saxon church and then spent 2 hours at nearby Hailes Abbey, listening to extremely well-done audio-guides, explaining the life of monks in this 13th century Cistercian house.  There are only a few stone arches remaining from those days, due to Henry VIII's orders to destroy Catholic buildings in 1539.

                                       Ruins of Hailes Abbey cloister

The afternoon stroll to Winchcombe, our final destination for the day, took us through more sheep and cow pastures, hearing the whistle of a steam engine train and seeing its white cloud of steam billowing out behind, over wooden stiles and under massive spreading oak trees - but thankfully no steep climbs, either up or down.

We arrived in Winchcombe in time for a lovely, late lunch in the back patio of the Red Lion Inn.  We have learned - the hard way - that it's best not to eat a big meal before sleeping.  We're trying to be restrained and won't eat again today.  Well, maybe a ginger nut or two :).  We'll be in Winchcombe for two nights, giving ourselves a break from walking, looking around this more vibrant Cotswold town, staying in another lovely Airbnb.  Our knees and toes are feeling better.  We're back on track!