Today we visit the beautiful Cotswolds! Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head. Oh, wait that's a Beatles song. We woke up, got ready, and got packed. We dragged our huge suitcase back to the car park and picked up our car. I was so nervous about driving and I seriously felt like I was praying all day long! We were up and out pretty early and it was also Sunday so luckily there wasn't a lot of people on the roads in Oxford. We drove across the street to McDonald's. I know. It was right by where we were and also right by the road we needed to take, so judge us! The menu items were a little different, healthier, in my opinion. I was so nervous about this day so I was feeling a little queasy. I'm not pregnant, I promise! haha!
After a quick breakfast, we hit the road! The hardest part of driving (for Trevor) was turning. In the US its easier to turn right but in the UK it's easier to turn left. It was also difficult to figure out which side of the road we needed to be on when turning out of a parking lot. Driving in the UK totally rewired our brains. To this day we are still a little sketched out about whether we are on the right side of the road when turning out of parking lots! Another hard thing was driving on the country lanes (which was for most of our drive because I "avoided highways" on our directions) because the roads are so small. If you see another person coming from the opposite direction one of the cars has to pull off to the side so the other one can pass. Other than that it went by pretty smoothly.
We first headed to sleepy Bibury to see Arlington Row. Arlington Row is depicted on the UK's passport and is one of the places that I kept on seeing come up whenever I researched the Cotswolds. It definitely became one of the places that I was most eager to see in the Cotswolds. I wanted to head here first because I knew it would probably get pretty crowded. We came at the perfect time because there were only 3 people there and by the time we were done a huge tour bus pulled up.
It was so beautiful and so surreal to see in person! It was a line of tiny little houses all jammed together with tiny little doors on the front. This place was another place where we said, "I bet this looks beautiful in the spring/summer!" It was still beautiful even though most of the surrounding plant life were dead. Fun fact: Stardust was filmed here!
From there we drove about an hour to Lacock Abbey in Lacock. Many movies were filmed here! Most notably (and the main reason I wanted to come here) was Harry Potter 1 & 2! Fantastic Beasts 2, Wolf Hall, The Other Boleyn Girl, and the 1995 version (the best one, in my opinion) of Pride & Prejudice were filmed here as well which are films I adore! So it was pretty neat getting to walk along the cloisters and rooms of this Abbey. Trevor and I noticed a lot of scantily clad women in some of the paintings and thought it was odd to have these in a nunnery! So I looked it up and apparently it was a nunnery but when England separated itself from Catholicism it was turned into someones home. The whole village was under the National Trust and a lot of other movies and shows were filmed throughout the village including; Harry Potter 1 & 6, Downton Abbey, The White Princess, and more of Pride & Prejudice.
It was here in Lacock that I tasted my first sip of alcohol. Hah just kidding! Kind of... Trevor and I walked around the village and there was a little shop selling drinks and pies so I grabbed a spinach pie and some "fizzy" water (Carbonated water in the US. There were hardly any shops selling normal water! I was so thirsty I just suffered through it.) and Trevor got a pie and drink called "Dandelion & Burdock" thinking it was just one of those novelty kinds of drinks sold at old fashioned kind of stores. Trevor tasted it and said it tasted super weird and had me try it. It was good but had a super weird after taste. He said it tasted fermented like alcohol (he was a crazy kid okay? haha) and so he looked it up and it had alcohol in it! It was a super low percentage.. like 0.5% or something so it wasn't that bad it just made me laugh (and cry inside.. ha!).
After, we drove to a place called Castle Combe. This was another place I was super eager to see. I had this picture as my phone background for a really long time and I found out it was actually in Castle Combe! So I got to see exactly where it was taken at. This place was so photogenic. There were a ton of people here at this point but we still managed to get a decent picture. We walked around this corner and saw this huge manor! We walked around it and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. I love the honey-colored walls that all the Cotswolds buildings have. Gorgeous. There was a church in this village (as in most villages) and we were allowed to go inside. We saw an effigy in the corner and it said that the person buried there died in 1270! Whaaaaaaaaat. So crazy. Stardust was also filmed here.
By this time I was stressing out about losing daylight so we decided to skip a couple of towns I had in my itinerary. They were busier towns so it was kind of nice to just stick to the small villages. One place we wanted to stop at was so incredibly crowded that we decided it would be pointless to even try to find a parking spot. Why were there so many people here!? Whenever I saw pictures of these places there were never any people in them so in my naive mind I imagined it to be that way. So so naive. We drove through some more towns I had on my itinerary and just enjoyed the views instead of actually stopping.
We stopped at a place called Stow-On-The-Wold. Love the names of these villages. There is a church here called St. Edward's church and it has a beautiful door flanked by two huge trees that, rumor has it, inspired J.R.R. Tolkien for The Doors of Durin. So cool! It seriously looked like we were in a Lord of the Rings film.
We walked around the village and found The Porch House. It's an inn that's been open since 947 AD! What in the world! We didn't go inside because it was pretty packed but just seeing it was enough for me to be in awe!
We then headed for a place called Blockley. Any Father Brown fans out there? This is where it was filmed! Well mostly anyway. This was very exciting for me because I got to see Father Brown's parish! It was like I was stepping into the show.
The sun was setting and there was one last place I wanted to see. Broadway Tower! This also happened to be an old phone background that I had! This is such a random little tower sitting on a hill. We came literally 1 minute too late because it closed right when we got there. We weren't set on going inside so it wasn't that much of a blow. Just seeing it was enough. We came right when the sun was setting so it made for a gorgeous view.
We were feeling pretty hungry so we set off for the village of Broadway. We were pretty set on having the classic "Sunday Roast" in a pub but we didn't realize most people eat them during the late afternoon/early evening so we, unfortunately, missed out on that bucket list item. The bartender (that's who you order food from in a pub) was super rude and condescending to Trevor.
We contacted our Airbnb host and met her husband at the next village where he led us to their beautiful home. It was late so I only have photos from the next morning. When we got to their home and we met the host and she introduced herself to us I thought, "Oh she's American!" but then she kept talking and had an accent on some words, so I thought "Oh no... maybe she's Irish or something?" Turns out she was American but has been in England for so long she was starting to have an accent! It was very obvious she was a wealthy woman! Her house was huge and so beautiful. I'll insert the pictures she has on her Airbnb because the room was gorgeous and looked exactly the photos and I stupidly didn't take any photos of the inside.. so here are her's!
By this point, I was beyond exhausted. I think from stressing out all day about driving it made me extremely tired. It takes me on average an hour to go to sleep every night but this night I fell asleep fully clothed while Trevor was talking to his mom right when we got there! He made me get up and take a bath because I love baths and this one was huge and extremely nice. After that, I passed out again. Onto the next day!
After a quick breakfast, we hit the road! The hardest part of driving (for Trevor) was turning. In the US its easier to turn right but in the UK it's easier to turn left. It was also difficult to figure out which side of the road we needed to be on when turning out of a parking lot. Driving in the UK totally rewired our brains. To this day we are still a little sketched out about whether we are on the right side of the road when turning out of parking lots! Another hard thing was driving on the country lanes (which was for most of our drive because I "avoided highways" on our directions) because the roads are so small. If you see another person coming from the opposite direction one of the cars has to pull off to the side so the other one can pass. Other than that it went by pretty smoothly.
We first headed to sleepy Bibury to see Arlington Row. Arlington Row is depicted on the UK's passport and is one of the places that I kept on seeing come up whenever I researched the Cotswolds. It definitely became one of the places that I was most eager to see in the Cotswolds. I wanted to head here first because I knew it would probably get pretty crowded. We came at the perfect time because there were only 3 people there and by the time we were done a huge tour bus pulled up.
It was so beautiful and so surreal to see in person! It was a line of tiny little houses all jammed together with tiny little doors on the front. This place was another place where we said, "I bet this looks beautiful in the spring/summer!" It was still beautiful even though most of the surrounding plant life were dead. Fun fact: Stardust was filmed here!
From there we drove about an hour to Lacock Abbey in Lacock. Many movies were filmed here! Most notably (and the main reason I wanted to come here) was Harry Potter 1 & 2! Fantastic Beasts 2, Wolf Hall, The Other Boleyn Girl, and the 1995 version (the best one, in my opinion) of Pride & Prejudice were filmed here as well which are films I adore! So it was pretty neat getting to walk along the cloisters and rooms of this Abbey. Trevor and I noticed a lot of scantily clad women in some of the paintings and thought it was odd to have these in a nunnery! So I looked it up and apparently it was a nunnery but when England separated itself from Catholicism it was turned into someones home. The whole village was under the National Trust and a lot of other movies and shows were filmed throughout the village including; Harry Potter 1 & 6, Downton Abbey, The White Princess, and more of Pride & Prejudice.
It was here in Lacock that I tasted my first sip of alcohol. Hah just kidding! Kind of... Trevor and I walked around the village and there was a little shop selling drinks and pies so I grabbed a spinach pie and some "fizzy" water (Carbonated water in the US. There were hardly any shops selling normal water! I was so thirsty I just suffered through it.) and Trevor got a pie and drink called "Dandelion & Burdock" thinking it was just one of those novelty kinds of drinks sold at old fashioned kind of stores. Trevor tasted it and said it tasted super weird and had me try it. It was good but had a super weird after taste. He said it tasted fermented like alcohol (he was a crazy kid okay? haha) and so he looked it up and it had alcohol in it! It was a super low percentage.. like 0.5% or something so it wasn't that bad it just made me laugh (and cry inside.. ha!).
Apparently, this is Harry Potter's parent's house in the first Harry Potter movie. I didn't really recognize it.
Horace Slughorn's house in the 6th Harry Potter movie!
By this time I was stressing out about losing daylight so we decided to skip a couple of towns I had in my itinerary. They were busier towns so it was kind of nice to just stick to the small villages. One place we wanted to stop at was so incredibly crowded that we decided it would be pointless to even try to find a parking spot. Why were there so many people here!? Whenever I saw pictures of these places there were never any people in them so in my naive mind I imagined it to be that way. So so naive. We drove through some more towns I had on my itinerary and just enjoyed the views instead of actually stopping.
We stopped at a place called Stow-On-The-Wold. Love the names of these villages. There is a church here called St. Edward's church and it has a beautiful door flanked by two huge trees that, rumor has it, inspired J.R.R. Tolkien for The Doors of Durin. So cool! It seriously looked like we were in a Lord of the Rings film.
We walked around the village and found The Porch House. It's an inn that's been open since 947 AD! What in the world! We didn't go inside because it was pretty packed but just seeing it was enough for me to be in awe!
We then headed for a place called Blockley. Any Father Brown fans out there? This is where it was filmed! Well mostly anyway. This was very exciting for me because I got to see Father Brown's parish! It was like I was stepping into the show.
This place was in Father Brown, too!
What a classic country photo, eh?
We were feeling pretty hungry so we set off for the village of Broadway. We were pretty set on having the classic "Sunday Roast" in a pub but we didn't realize most people eat them during the late afternoon/early evening so we, unfortunately, missed out on that bucket list item. The bartender (that's who you order food from in a pub) was super rude and condescending to Trevor.
We contacted our Airbnb host and met her husband at the next village where he led us to their beautiful home. It was late so I only have photos from the next morning. When we got to their home and we met the host and she introduced herself to us I thought, "Oh she's American!" but then she kept talking and had an accent on some words, so I thought "Oh no... maybe she's Irish or something?" Turns out she was American but has been in England for so long she was starting to have an accent! It was very obvious she was a wealthy woman! Her house was huge and so beautiful. I'll insert the pictures she has on her Airbnb because the room was gorgeous and looked exactly the photos and I stupidly didn't take any photos of the inside.. so here are her's!
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