Being in the Cotswolds is like being on a movie set. Stone cottages sit amongst rolling green hills, a stone’s throw from flowing streams. There’s no room for cars except on main roads and even these only have sufficient width for one car. We walked through the fields between the villages of Upper Slaughter and Lower Slaughter, so named for the old English term, ‘slough’, meaning ‘wet land’. As on many a walk in England, we had solitude, broken only by two women taking about ten working dogs for a swim in the river.
From our accommodation, we did a long circular day trek along part of the Cotswolds Way. I don’t know where else in the world it’s possible in a single walk to go through fields, forest paths, lush green woods, corn as tall as myself and roads, to pass sleepy cows, 600-year-old stone dwellings, medieval churches, a canal with moving bridges and barges, a lone fisherman standing in a stream catching trout, an old mill in the process of restoration, pick (and eat) wild blackberries growing in the bushes, and say hello to the friendly locals while stopping for refreshments at a pub mid-way.
The Cotswolds seem an old-world, eminently relaxing place to live.