Perfect 7-Day Itinerary: Cotswold’s with a splash of city.

England
Written By Mark Farley

The Cotswold roads are the picture of charming

Day 1: Arrive in one of the two airports in the London area, rent a car and head to the Cotswold’s.

It’s hard to choose poorly in the Cotswold’s – the whole area is completely charming and each little town offers something remarkable. Arrange lodging and take a homebase strategy to exploring the area.

Some towns to look at: Asthall, Snowshill, Broadway, Bourton-on-the-Water, Lower Slaughter, Upper Slaughter, Painswick, Burford, Castle Combe and Stow-on-the-Wold are all great choices for lodging and basecamp.

Gatwick to the general Cotswold area is going to take about 2-3 hours. The traffic can be pretty congested on the outskirts of London, which will stretch the 2 hours drive to closer to 3 hours. Once you leave the M4 and cross into the countryside, things will slow down there as well. This is a different kind of slow…the kind that is delightful!

Check into your lodgings and have dinner at the local pub! Breath. Have a pint or three, and pat yourself on the back. You made it. Now it’s time to slow down!

Ask the folks at the pub where the bakery and café are for the next morning.

Unless you are hopping to another town for a meal, you will be walking most everywhere you go in the little villages.

 Day 2 and 3: Two tracks

All the towns I just mentioned have little perfect cafes, bakeries, and cheese stores. You’ll know where it is because you asked the pub where to go the night before.

Pick from one of these day itineraries – they are independent tracks, each has you return to your Cotswold home base.

Track 1: Cathedrals, Castles and Abbey’s

Head to Gloucester and visit the Gloucester Cathedral. Not only is it a destination rich in history, unique in architecture, but also a filming location for many, many movies including Harry Potter. From most towns in the Cotswold areas the Cathedral is a 15-30 min drive. Spend 1-2 hours in this amazing place. One block over from the cathedral, you’ll find a street filled with restaurants and cafes. Depending on how early, or late you’ve arrived, eat breakfast, or lunch, and then hit the road again toward Goodrich Castle. It will be a 40 min drive.

Goodrich Castle is an easy stop, with a visitor center, gift store and a remarkably good little café/restaurant. The short walk from the visitor center to the castle is easy and overlooks idyllic pasturelands along the way. The castle is a ruin, but still retains its shape, interior rooms, stairwells, and ramparts. It’s an hour stop and is a great little walk with some castle ruin scrambling.

Goodrich Castle sits at the head of the Wye Valley, an official Outstanding Natural Area. The drive through this region is a treat. Enjoy yourself along the way. There are many little remarkable little stops in the Wye Area.

Leave Goodrich Castle and head to Tintern Abbey, and 30 min drive.

Tintern Abbey is a dramatic ruin rich in history, and stunningly beautiful. Enter through a visitor center, pay an admission fee and then wander freely through the large ruins. If you have more time and feel like a more off-road jaunt, the ruin of St Mary’s Church is across the road. The church and graveyard are overgrown and sit on a hill that overlooks the valley. It’s beautiful, peaceful and a nice stroll.

Tinturn Abby is a grand sweeping structure with a rich history.

To get to the church ruin walk out the drive you turned into to get to the Abbey (leave your car parked at Tintern) and cross A466. There is a little residential street directly in front of you that veers to the right. Walk up the road and eventually it will shift to the left and up narrow lane. At some point you will note a footpath that moves up the hill to the left of the lane. Take that path and you will start to see the tip of the church peeking through the trees. You can easily spend an hour poking around.

The ruin of St. Mary’s Church is a wild overgrown delight.

Return to your car and make an assessment of how much daylight you have left, and how tired, or hungry you are. At your current location you are roughly an hour to hour and a half back to home base.

If you feel like you’ve got a couple more stops in you keep heading down A466 to a great overlook on the Wye valley: Eagle’s Nest.

After the Eagle’s Nest is Chepstow Castle, a large well preserved castle ruin. This is an easy stop and will also put you very near the heart of the town Chepstow which has a few restaurants and pubs. Leave Chepstow and intersect with M48, cross the river and head back to home base.

Track 2: Henges, Barrows, and the earthworks of the ancients

Leave home base and take A419 to Avebury.

If you are antsy and want to break up hour long drive you can make a stop at Cirencester and visit the St John Baptist church if you like. The nearby Crinium Museum has a nice collection of Roman artifacts all found in the area. It’s a cool little town, and there are plenty of cute places to get coffee, tea, and breakfast. There is also a cheese and meat store – need I say more?

Avebury has a car park just on the outskirts of town. When you arrive in the narrow and somewhat congested rural little town, you might be initially daunted by the tour buses, and milling people. Don’t worry about it, you will be leaving this clog behind in no time.

Park, and gather your backpack, water, and whatever you want for a multiple hour stroll through the stones. You will want to make a quick stop at the Visitor Center, which is in a wonderful little cluster of historic buildings. You need a map. If you have what you need on your phone, which is available through the Avebury World Heritage website, you can skip the visitor center.

The stone thread all around the community. There is an obvious ‘beaten track’ that the majority of the tourists follow, and I would recommend starting there, as the stones are in great shape and quite impressive.

As you warm up to the scene, you will note that you can follow your nose to the next stone, and so forth. Wander, but be aware of signs that keep you away from private property. The residents of this little town put up with a lot; be courteous, complementary, and curious with the attitude of a guest.

Back towards the visitor center you will find shops, cafes and grab-and-go options.

See this article for more tips on visiting the Avebury henge.

Once you have had your fill of henges, get back in the car for a short drive to the trail head for West Kennet Long Barrow. The trail head is accessed from a very anonymous turnout simply along the highway. Pay attention.

Kennet Long Barrow

See this article for more details on visiting Kennet Long Barrow.

Depending on the amount of time you feel like you have, the Avebury World Heritage area has a lot to see. We highly recommend that you visit the English Heritage web site to broaden your day with more stops.

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/avebury/avebury-world-heritage-site/

Eat: The Cotwolds has some amazing food scattered within it’s quiet villages. None of them will scream at you with a big sign, so searching and hunting will be required. Here a few resources we found useful:

(https://www.eatwithellen.com/2023/02/best-places-cotswolds-food-and-drink/)

 Day 4: Quaint villages, the historical Sudeley manor, and the stunning countryside.

This is a wandering drive day. If you go slow, you’ll spend a total time of 3 hours in the car. If you go direct (not recommended) Sudeley is about a 40 min. drive.

While you destination is Sudeley Castle, but should take the scenic and wandering path through multiple little Cotswold towns. Burton-on-the-Water, Lower Slaughter, Shipton, Stow-on-the-Wold, Moreton-in-Marsh are all ‘along the way’ to Sudeley. Each of these town are scenic, have remarkable landmarks, and are rich in history. We picked one or two as shopping, snacking, and walking stops as we made our leisurely way to Sudeley.

Sudeley is a ‘Castlized Manor’ with a rich history worthy of a BBC min-series. The manor has beautiful grounds, a chapel, and you are able to tour the main house. They have a lovely gift store, and a small restaurant. If you picked up any picnic supplies while visiting the villages, the Sudeley grounds would be a perfect place to enjoy a leisurely lunch.

See this article for more tips on visiting Sudeley Manor.

Make your way back to home base, and prepare to leave the next day. Purchase your Roman Bath tickets on-line for your next days visit.

Day 5: The Roman Baths and transit to London

Pack up and say goodbye to your Cotswolds homebase and point your rental car towards Bath. You will be dropping your rental car off along the way. We used Enterprise, which has site in Bath. Check ahead of time that your rental agency has a Bath based site.

The drive from the Cotswolds to Bath is pretty straight-forward and an hour drive time.

When you drop your rental car off, depending on where the shop is located, you may need to take a taxi or Uber to the Roman Bath location.

The Roman Bath is a rocks throw from the metro station – you will want to purchase one-way tickets from Bath to London at some point in your days organization.

Depending when you arrive in Bath, there are many restaurants, both quick and slow, surrounding the Roman Bath/Train station area.

The Roman Bath site is pretty remarkable, and will take 2-3 hours depending on your speed of historic consumption.

Check out this article for tips on visiting the Roman Bath.

When you’ve concluded your time in Bath, you will get on a train into London (Paddington Station) – which is approximately an hour and a half train ride.

Say goodbye to the quiet life…you are in London now!

Once you arrive you will make your way to taxis and ground transport. Much of the taxi services in London are app driven, so do a little homework and get yourself signed up on the various services you will need while in London.

Transit to your accommodations, settle and have a nice dinner.

Day 6, 7, 8 The sights, flavors and culture of London      

The next two to three days can be devoted to whatever London activities suit you.

While the city is easy to get around in, don’t plan on it being fast. Spend a little time orienting on-line to the underground, and getting all the apps, and metro cards (Oyster Card). https://londonpass.com/en-us/london-transport you need ahead of time to make your London adventure easy. For those traveler’s who don’t come from underground metro cities, ground transport may look easier…but it’s not. Traffic, high fees, and stressful pick up ambiguities, should make ground transportation your backup choice. The underground will get you central to just about anywhere you will want to visit, and then walking from the metro station is your best bet.

Some things to consider:

  • For a more touristy approach consider the Hop-on-Hop off bus pass.

  • British Museum (for tips on visiting see this article)

  • Westminster abbey

  • Tower of London

  • Tower Bridge

  • Shakespeare’s Globe Theater (for tips on visiting see this article)

  • Buckingham Palace

  • St. Paul’s Cathedral

  • Royal Botanical Garden

  • The Golden Hind and Cutty Sark

  • Windsor Castle

  • Food, history, pop culture and literature tours abound!

Eat:

London has some exceptional restaurants and a wide variety of ethnic cuisines. Get out and eat! Eat a culture you haven’t eaten before – London is going to offer you some of the best, spoiling you for the rest of your life.

Restaurants change often-ish and are hard to writ into an article like this. I would refer you to the resource I start with (https://london.eater.com)  and (https://www.theinfatuation.com/london/guides/first-timers-best-london-restaurants) to zero in on cuisines, and districts. Pay attention to where the restaurant is located when you are reading restaurant reviews. You want something special, but don’t need a multi-hour transit as a surprise.

Tips:

Mark Farley
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