Having posted a couple of reviews and tips, someone suggested I do one of these reports: beware of what you ask for! : - )
We are a family of three - our son is 15 and still like to travel and do things with his parents! I ended up travelling to the UK for business reasons and my family joined me using air miles - the best way to pay : - ) We did spend our initial 10 days in Paris in an apt from an agent in the RS Paris book (that book was our travel "bible"! - serious good stuff there) and then back to SW England for the rest of June. Our travel agent found a reasonably-priced flight to Paris (we didn't use the cheapo flights for several reasons, mostly because the inconvenience ended up costing the same) and booked our return (again, reasonably priced) from Paris to Bristol via Amsterdam: Bristol because we wanted to end up near Bath - saved $$ on train/travel from London (and hassle!). We stayed in Bradford-on-Avon (Bradford Views - great host, nice apartment, central location on the Shambles near the Dandy Lion Hotel/pub). BoA turned out to be a wonderful village with an old Saxon Church and a glorious river. We met some great people and wished we had had "just 1 more day" - always a good sign. BoA is also about 15-20 minutes from Bath by train (cheap ride) so the combo of good accomm plus easy access meant it was WAY better to stay here than in Bath proper. In Bath - you have to do the free Mayor's Walk: 2X/day, free volunteer-led guided tours of the whole town and history: fantastic! We also did the Mad Max tour of Glastonbury/Wells/Cheddar - well worth the $$: guide was really good and the tour was manageable without being boring.
Next up was Tewkesbury because, frankly, we found a cheap place to stay near the Cotswolds. I highly recommend using the Landmark Trust folks to search for places to stay: we had a restored weavers cottage for about 50 pounds/night: glorious - 2 bedrooms, full kitchen, small patio and easy walking to everything in Tewkes. Drawback - it's an old place so each area is its own floor: 1 - kitchen/dining, 2 - living room, 3-bedrrom, 4-bedroom. You get up and down via a very barrow corkscrew staircase that actually isn't too bad once you get used to the idea. This place is a secret gem - close to everything Cotswold (we did Stow, Sudeley Castle, etc) and everything goes out through Cheltenham - we even did Oxford in one day. (In Oxford - do the Museum of the History of Science - LOTS of neat stuff including a blackboard from an Einstein lecture and Marconi's original gear!) Tewkes is also a good tourist spot on its own - steeped in history and lots of places to just chill - and the folks in the TI office are very good. I've already commented on the food/drink, but the Abbey is well worth the trip and the whole area is a relaxing place to base yourself out of. We'd seriously consider going here as a destination on its own in the future!
A tip - from a friend, but we used it on our trip: check out the thrift shops for small items AND for good used books: we bought several and then donated most of them back when we were done - entertainment at a reasonable price.
Another tip: Amazon delivery is much better than it is in Canada - we used it a couple of times and it was great: pretty close to next-day service anywhere!
Enjoy!
Posted by
The Heartland USA
8447 posts
Thanks Robert good report. Anything you would do different next time?
Posted by
OP
7 posts
HI, Stan;
Probably not : - )
We thoroughly enjoyed our time. One thing - we didn't really "get" the idea of the Cotswold area until we got there and travelled a bit. For personal reasons, we had thought we would be taking more "days off" than we did - a pleasant change! - so having such a range of places to go and things to see was good. I think we also learned that getting a "home base" and travelling from there (day trips) is a more viable idea than most people think: certainly we would NOT do the change-hotels-every-2-days thing, but we like to get to know a place and that means spending time there and with the people in the place.
While we used the RS Paris book as our sole and highly-valued reference in Paris, the England book wasn't as valuable or informativve for us, probably because we diudn't stay in any of the big cities: neither Bradford-on-Avopn or Tewkesbury are covered. What we DID learn from the RS books was to rely on the local Tourist Info offices for extremely good help - everything from booking our triup from Tewkes to Heathrow to figuring out the best way to maximise our Cotswold experience in a short time frame ... and a couple of great eating place "secrets" too! We have pictures of us with the TI folk - that's how hepfull and friendly they were.
So - what would we do differently? Probably realise that we don't have to see everything, that the quality of the experience is better than the quantity of places and that things always seem to work out. : - )
Posted by
OP
7 posts
HI, Stan;
Probably not : - )
We thoroughly enjoyed our time. One thing - we didn't really "get" the idea of the Cotswold area until we got there and travelled a bit. For personal reasons, we had thought we would be taking more "days off" than we did - a pleasant change! - so having such a range of places to go and things to see was good. I think we also learned that getting a "home base" and travelling from there (day trips) is a more viable idea than most people think: certainly we would NOT do the change-hotels-every-2-days thing, but we like to get to know a place and that means spending time there and with the people in the place.
While we used the RS Paris book as our sole and highly-valued reference in Paris, the England book wasn't as valuable or informativve for us, probably because we diudn't stay in any of the big cities: neither Bradford-on-Avopn or Tewkesbury are covered. What we DID learn from the RS books was to rely on the local Tourist Info offices for extremely good help - everything from booking our triup from Tewkes to Heathrow to figuring out the best way to maximise our Cotswold experience in a short time frame ... and a couple of great eating place "secrets" too! We have pictures of us with the TI folk - that's how hepfull and friendly they were.
So - what would we do differently? Probably realise that we don't have to see everything, that the quality of the experience is better than the quantity of places and that things always seem to work out. : - )
Posted by
Nashville, TN, USA
3761 posts
Robert, Thanks for writing a trip report! Great information, and you have a great writing style. Enjoyed your posts.