UK Part II- Wiltshire, Bath & The Cotswolds

I realized after my last post, that I never shared about our last-minute changes of plans. This trip was planned as a piggy-back onto a work trip for Ev. He was scheduled to speak at a conference in London, so we booked a ticket for me, and reserved a few extra days at the hotel so we could do some sight-seeing together. Less than two weeks before we were due to leave for our trip, the conference was cancelled. Crazy, huh? So they did some scrambling and tried to find some other reasons for a work trip, like visiting British air bases to talk with their British counterparts. We changed all of our accommodation reservations and I went to work re-planning our trip and researching what there was to see in the countryside. After about a week, it became evident that we were not able to do both work and pleasure in one trip. So we bought Ev a ticket and turned it into a vacation. It made for a very stressful pre-trip week, but in the end it worked out really well. We were able to see things that we would not have seen, and meet some very nice people along the way.

Which brings us to our second day. We headed first to Stourhead. It is a beautiful house, though we didn't go inside. I wanted to see the famous landscape garden. I was not disappointed. It was a beautiful time of year to be there, as the garden is filled with rhododendrons and azaleas which were all in bloom.











Eighteenth century landscape gardens are known for their "follies," such as the Greek-inspired temples and hidden grottoes that we explored. However, Stourhead has a magnificent folly of a different sort, named King Alfred's Tower. Maybe they wouldn't classify it as a folly in the strictest sense, because it was built partially to commemorate a historical event. Nonetheless, it was built primarily to impress the visitors to Stourhead. And it is impressive. We climbed the 205 steps to the top of the 160 ft tower, and we were rewarded with breathtaking views of the Wiltshire countryside.









The next stop on our trip was the city of Bath. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived in Bath, I wasn't feeling very well. Over-tired and under-nourished, I think. We only stayed a few hours, and saw a fraction of what we had planned, but I just wore myself out earlier in the day. It was also very, very crowded. We did see the Roman baths and walked around a little bit in the city center.





Despite feeling "rather moldy," as one of our b&b hosts put it, I did get a kick out of seeing this music man in the square. I also had to have a picture of this crazy pig sitting at the base of the Bath Abbey. What a crazy juxtaposition!





We left Bath early, and began our drive up to the northern part of the Cotswolds where we had reservations for the next two nights. I admit, I slept most of the way, while Everett drove and the GPS navigated. I'm disappointed that I missed so much of that drive, but my body demanded that I give in and sleep eventually. Here is a sneak peek at the Cotswolds.