110 Miles from Chipping Campden to Bath:

Day 6 Wotton-Under-Edge to Cold Ashton (22 miles)

We walked out of Wotton-Under-Edge before any shops were open on a quiet, cloudy morning.

We had opted for only cold breakfast and coffee at The Swan Hotel in the hopes that it would get us out the door earlier.

(Also, in my experience, it’s easier to hit it hard in the morning if you haven’t just finished eating a full English breakfast!)

Kandace had a day pack that Taido had brought over to her, so we were both traveling light.

The trail out of Wotton-Under-Edge was very sweet.
Loads of fields and so many sheep.

Even after six days, we were not tired of seeing sheep.

Nor was I tired of wooded pathways lined with flowering wild garlic.

Honestly, The Cotswold Way stayed beautiful for just about every mile we walked.

Which was good, because we walked A LOT of miles, and on this day especially.

We reached Old Sodbury sometime after noon and stopped for lunch. We had made great time, fitting in 14 miles before lunch.

We found The Dog Inn in Old Sodbury a great place to stop for lunch as we were dog tired.

We both ate quite a bit after our smaller breakfast, and then we drank a pot of tea to help with the afternoon push.

More green hills. More lambs.

And even a few horses, which Kandace stopped to make friends with.

There are not many photos of this day, and even less of the next, because we were walking so fast.

We took very few breaks, and somehow we made it to Cold Ashton by 5pm where Taido was waiting for us with drinks and snacks.

22 miles from Wotton-Under-Edge to Cold Ashton.

I was super proud. And super tired, of course.

Taido drove us back to Bristol where we had a lovely evening and I had SUCH a glorious sleep in my own bed.

I guess some days on the trail are just about seeing how far you can go and this was one of those.

I am constantly questioning my ability to do these long walks (even though I am always planning one), so I love to set a challenge that feels completely out of my range and then surprise myself by being up for it.

The next day we only had 10 miles left of The Cotswold Way. Easy peasy.

The post The Cotswold Way Day 6: Wotton-Under-Edge to Cold Ashton appeared first on Alison Chino.

110 Miles from Chipping Campden to Bath:

Day 5 Kings Stanley to Wotton-Under-Edge (15 miles)

If I could only choose one section of the Cotswold Way to do again, it might be this day from Kings Stanley to Wotton Upon Edge. It was undoubtedly another hard stretch with a lot of climbing up and down, but I think it might have been the prettiest.

Of course there are so many variables. The rain had made everything shine, but now the sun was out and the sky was blue again.

We were getting nearer to the end of our walk so I was trying to slow it down, not wanting it to be over too soon.

It’s so strange to look forward to and train for a walk for so long, and then all of a sudden it’s more than half way over.

The days fly by, while the steps go only one at a time.

Our steps took us up the hill from The White Heart to rejoin the trail and climb through a wood to Coaley Peak.

As you near the top of the hill, there are old iron age forts left in the ground. Actually we saw loads of these on The Cotswold Way. There are lots of historical markers showing you where and how people lived ages and ages ago. It’s one of the draws of this trail for folks.

As you walk the ridge, you can see where you’ve come from and where you are headed. There are several bigger towns that you never go through on The Cotswold Way, but that you can see from these hilltops.

We climbed all morning, mostly separately. We opted to spend the morning walking on our own and then meet up in Dursley for lunch, which is the first town we came to on this day.

I was still tired from the march in the rain, so I stopped often when the views were lovely.

You could see the little white specks of sheep in the fields below and also as I looked at the map, I could see we would be circling the ridge, dropping down, and then climbing right back up again.

We descended from Coaley Peak through a wood.

We even passed a few limestone cliffs.

The trees in this wood seemed like they were just about to start walking on the path themselves, leaned in as they were towards the trail.

When I finally got around to the hill I had seen earlier, it seemed much further to climb than it had from so far away.

But eventually I made it up. I even turned around and walked backwards for about a third of it.

Thankfully, it was the final hill of the morning, and lunch was not far away.

I found Kandace at a cute cafe in the middle of town, where we rested for a while and refueled.

Dursley is another cutie town that we could have easily spent a little longer in, but we headed on after our lunch.

More beautiful field crossings.

The climbing was a little more gradual and spread out after the steep morning hills.

For much of the afternoon, we could see the Tyndale Monument in the distance as it got closer and closer.

At one point the trail went right through a tall overgrown rapeseed field.

You had to walk right through the rapeseed. We were both already having some allergy issues since it was May and everything was in bloom, so we dug out our face masks, which we had not yet used on this trip, and put them on to walk through this field.

You could see the line of the trail lightly through the field, but at some points the plants came up over our heads.

It seemed like this field swallowed us up and spit us out on the other side.

We were covered in little tiny yellow petals.

The next village we came to on The Cotswold Way after Dursley was North Nimbley.

It’s another one-street town, but very cute.

I think maybe I aspire to one day have “The Street” as part of my address.

We climbed up through another forest after North Nimbley.

When we emerged from the trees we were finally on the hill with the Tyndale Monument.

We had been watching it all day, so it only seemed fitting to climb to the top.

It was built in 1866 honor of William Tyndale, who did an early translation of the New Testament into English.
He was born nearby.

We were rewarded with beautiful views of the surrounding valleys and villages.

You can clearly see The Street of North Nimbley below.

From the monument, we descended into Wotton-Under-Edge.

This was one of my favorite towns we passed through, and again we would have happily spent longer here.

We stopped in a pub as soon as we got into town, and then afterwards we made our way to our hotel, The Swan.

At this point we were less than an hour away from Bristol, so Simon and Taido drove over to have dinner with us. It would be our last night sleeping on the trail as the next day we would be so close to home that it would have been silly not to sleep there.

We ate a (final) yummy pub dinner at The Swan with Taido and Simon, and then we loaded them up with everything we didn’t want to carry the next day and sent them on their way.

We went for a quick wander around the town (again, a walk on a walk) before heading to bed.

As we walked, we talked through our strategy for the next day. Since we would be sleeping at home the next night, we were going to walk as far as we could and then call Taido to come get us.

We had 32 miles left of the trail, so we figured we could knock out at least 20 of those miles the next day.

Our thinking was that we would just go for one big push and then on Saturday, we would have an easy day.

Taido and Simon were planning to hike our final stretch into Bath with us on Saturday. Then Kandace would be heading home on Sunday. (How did it go by so fast?)

We popped into the pub for one final nightcap before our last sleep in a Cotswold village.

The post The Cotswold Way Day 5: Kings Stanley to Wotton-under-Edge appeared first on Alison Chino.

110 Miles from Chipping Campden to Bath:

Day 14 Birdlip to Kings Stanley (16 miles)

We woke up to the rain that had been promised. We’d left a window open, so we could hear it falling immediately.

We got up early and had breakfast as early as it was offered, knowing we had another long day ahead of us.

Fortunately, as soon as we walked out of Birdlip, we entered a forest, thick with a canopy that gave us some shelter from the rain.

The rain on the trees made it feel like someone was turning the brightness up on all the color.

We had peekaboo views along the forest trail of the fields we had been walking in, and even they seemed a brighter shade of green.

You could smell the wild garlic as we walked. Or rather, as we marched.

With hats and rainjacket hoods, it was hard to hear one another, so for the most part, we just put our heads down and got on with it, pushing through the rain.

I got out my phone and took all these forest photos in the space of about ten minutes. Then I put my phone away and clicked through some miles.

We emerged soaking wet from the forest mid-morning into the village of Painswick.

It was raining harder than we had realized while covered by the trees, so we hurried through town to find an open cafe.

When we got there, we peeled off all our wet layers and spread them out over our packs to dry.

Then we walked in our squishy wet boots up to the counter to order hot drinks.

Water continued to drip from my hair and boots onto the floor as we stood there ordering.

I had a cream tea (which is tea and scones with clotted cream and jam) and Kandace ordered coffee.

We drank our hot drinks slowly, enjoying being out of the rain. And then we ordered a second round of hot drinks because we just weren’t ready to go back out yet.

We had come seven miles, so we had nine still left to go.

Maybe the rain would let up a bit, we hoped.

When we walked out of the cafe after over an hour, we convinced ourselves that yes, the rain had let up a bit.

We left Painswick as quickly as we’d entered though, not stopping too long anywhere else.

The drizzle continued to fall. It wasn’t a downpour, but it was consistently falling.

Still, we were grateful we had walked so much of the day in the forest. The previous day we had been on ridges and hills, so we wouldn’t have had nearly as much protection from the rain.

We passed the halfway mark of the whole Cotswold Way, so we stopped briefly to celebrate.

Then we carried on through the next field.

And back into the trees for a bit.

The second part of the day had more climbing, so we were glad when the rain finally did let up around 2pm.

We still got the occasional light shower, but for the most part, the rain in the late afternoon seemed to be giving up the fight.

And the clouds blew aside enough for the views to be enjoyable.

We walked through some woodlands and up some more hills.

We were tempted to take a detour to a coffee shop we passed a sign for, but we pushed on.

The final stretch of the day turned really pretty.

There were even spots of blue sky.

After a few chats with some cows and climbing over stone stiles, we finally reached King’s Stanley.

Our accommodation for this night was another village over, in Leonard Stanley, but we had been warned that there wasn’t much there. In fact, there wasn’t much in King’s Stanley either.

As far as we could tell there was a pub (serving only drinks), a small grocery store and a Chinese food take out place.

We opted for Chinese takeout, which we ate at the pub with our drinks.

Then we walked over to Leonard Stanley.

In Leonard Stanley, we were staying at The White Hart, which was located on The Street.

When a town is not very big, I guess the main street can just be called “The Street.”

After we showered, the sun had finally come out, so we went for a walk around Leonard Stanley.

(It’s always funny to go for a walk when you are on a walk. You’re in this little tiny town, so after dinner if the sun is out, you look at your walking partner and ask, should we go for a wander around town?)

There was a really pretty church, and an old manor.

A farm at the edge of town that had this little vending machine selling farm fresh products.

And also, you can fill your bottles with fresh milk. Adorbs.

We didn’t walk too long of course because our legs were ready for a rest.

So we headed back to The White Hart before it was even dark and crawled into our beds.

We were in a cute A-frame shaped room at the top of the inn.

We laughed about the morning in the rain and talked about how amazing it was that our rainy day had so much forest cover.

We were heading onto more hills the next day where we wouldn’t have nearly as many trees, so the weather seemed well-timed.

Kandace and I have walked many days in the rain, and sometimes they come day after day after day. So one day of rain didn’t seem so bad, especially now that it was behind us.

In fact, one day of rain on a long walk helps you to better appreciate all the good weather days.

The post The Cotswold Way Day 4: Birdlip to Kings Stanley appeared first on Alison Chino.

110 Miles from Chipping Campden to Bath:

Day 3 Cleeve Hill to Birdlip (16 miles)

The thing is…I don’t mind walking 10+ miles in one go. I do it often at home, even once or twice a month.

But the challenge of a long walk is doing 10-15 miles day after day. In Cleeve Hill, on the morning of day 3, I was feeling good, not nearly as sore as I had anticipated being, but I was also a bit daunted by the 16 mile day ahead of us, and the one after that, and the one after that.

We started with a gorgeous breakfast and beautiful views, and then we were the first walkers to take our boots off of the shoe racks and get out and on with our day. It was a quick climb back up the hill from the village of Cleeve Hill which is just a little row of buildings hanging on to the side the hill.

We were in good spirits as we climbed that first hill.

It was cloudy, humid and windy!

The clouds were moving and changing quickly as we went.

In the distance you could see bits of clear sky and then they would be covered again.

But the day was supposed to warm up, so we carried on, grateful for the cloud cover.

We rounded Cleeve Common and then descended for a long stretch through a forest.

It was a long slog down from all the elevation we had gained the day before, but the paths were great and the sky started to clear.

Wild garlic blooms lined the paths through the woods.

It almost looked like the green-carpeted forest had been dusted with snow.

But of course, it was much too hot for snow.

We were glad to happen upon a farm shop for a smoothie and snack stop after coming off the hill.

After our quick rest, we climbed again.

Not as high as the day before, but still, we had a good amount of elevation to get back up to Charlton Kings Common with views across Cheltenham and the Severn Vale. 

A man at the farm shop told us that this stretch was the prettiest bit of the whole Cotswold Way.

We can’t be sure, but it was a lovely stretch for sure.

But we were tired and starting to be hungry again by the time we reached the top of the hill.

Somewhere in our haste and fatigue, we took a wrong turn and came off the ridge a little too soon.

One detail about the Cotswold Way is that since it stretches so far, different folks manage the signage and it is not all uniform.

The trail is very well-marked, but the markings aren’t always the same color. AND there are some other trails that are easy to confuse with The Cotswold Way, such as The Cotswold Way Circular Walk.

This arrow pointing down fooled us because we were coming at this sign from the right of this photo and didn’t see the very clear markings on the front of this post until later when we came back from this wrong turn.

Oops.

After that small mishap, we took the correct route down off of Charlton Kings Common and marched on. We felt close enough to our destination at this point that we decided we would push on and have an early dinner, but then we met a dog walker who told us that there was a great restaurant called the Star Bistro that we would pass in just a mile or two.

Great! We said. We would definitely stop there. We turned off the path to follow the signs to the Bistro that is set inside of a care home facility (which the restaurant’s proceeds benefit), but they were closed for the day in order to host a private event.

Disappointed, we sat on some picnic benches outside and had a snack.

I actually lied down on my back on the bench and closed my eyes for a few minutes.

Whatever steam I had woken up with that morning was long gone.

We still had 3 or 4 miles left to go and I was beat. We also had two more small hills to climb.

I was tempted to follow the road on the map and skip the last couple of hills, but once we got moving again, I knew I would stick to the path.

It had warmed up quite a bit, so I moved a little slower up Crikey Hill.

Onward we went along a ridge and up one more short hill, through another forest and down towards Birdlip, which we reached around 5:30pm.

I pretty much collapsed in the pub where we were staying. We immediately ordered beers and chips before even looking at the menu. We downed them quickly and then ordered dinner before we went for our showers. We were sweaty and gross, but too ravenous to care. I’m not even sure what we ate.

Then we went to our room, showered and fell into bed.

I can tell how tired I was at the end of a day on a walking trip by how few pictures I have, and on this day I literally only have this one photo of the Birdlip town sign. Apparently, I coud not even be bothered to photograph the pub where we stayed.

I think I slept really well this night, but honestly, even if I didn’t, I am sure I was happy to just not be moving for several hours.

I do remember that I checked the weather (as always) before bed and warned Kandace that tomorrow there would be rain, and lots of it.

The post The Cotswold Way Day 3: Cleeve Hill to Birdlip appeared first on Alison Chino.

110 Miles from Chipping Campden to Bath:

Day 2 Stanton to Cleeve Hill (15 miles)

After eating the cereal and yogurts left for us in our darling kitchen, we set out early.

We walked out of adorable Stanton and into even more adorable Church Stanway.

After passing several cottages covered in wisteria, we walked by an old Jacobean manor complete with beautiful grounds, a gatehouse with scallop shell trimmings, a 12th century church and a tithe barn.

We wandered all around the church trying to go inside but it was locked.

So instead we peeked over the walls for a glimpse at the manor.

You can see the scallop shells on the top of the gatehouse in the photo below. (Scallop shells always remind me of the Camino.)

Blue skies above and green grass below, we continued down the country lane past an old mill (13th century), a blacksmith’s cottage and a small river.

We were walking through what used to be the heart of this tiny village, a hearkening back to a time when folks were born, lived, worked and died on the same square mile.

I actually just finished reading Cider with Rosie, Laurie Lee’s memoir about growing up in a Cotswold village. He was born in 1914, so in his lifetime, he saw the final chapter of a way of life that had continued for hundreds and hundreds of years.

When you walk through these preserved villages, you get a little glimpse of what it must have been like.

After the villages, we walked most of the morning through fields, pausing often to watch baby lambs prancing across the path. We unintentionally scattered them as we walked, disturbing their rest and play.

We also passed Hailes Abbey, the ruins of a former Cistercian Abbey from 1246 where monks lived and worked for three centuries until the abbey was dissolved by Henry VIII in 1539, yet another change that happened suddenly to a way of life that had continued for ages. Unfortunately for the monks, the ending of the reign of the Catholic church in England meant that they were either executed or exiled.

Now they abbey ruins are being reclaimed by the earth.

We reached Winchcombe before noon, after covering about eight miles.

We stopped for a pub lunch at The White Hart, a common pub name in England. A “hart” is a male deer.

Kandace had a curry and I had a veggie pie that was topped with roasted beet root, which was “lush,” as they say here.

The vegetarian and vegan offerings at pubs have vastly improved and expanded since I was last walking in England.

Everywhere we stopped seemed to have a decent selection of meatless offerings!

By 12:45pm we were moseying with full bellies out of Winchcombe with seven miles left to go, including a climb to the highest bit of the Cotswold Way.

We passed the entrance to Sudley Castle on our way out of the village. Sudley is a large 15th century estate and garden that was open for touring but would have taken us too long. We both said it would have been lovely to spend the night in Winchcombe and take a day to tour the castle, but for us, it was time to push on and head up, up, up.

We climbed and descended, and then climbed and descended a few times more.

It grew cloudy in the late afternoon, and we reached Cleeve Common – the hills above the village of Cleeve Hill, which was our destination for the day. We stopped at a golf course cafe that was closing up, but the gal sweeping up kindly sold us a cup of tea and an ice cream which we had on the porch of the golf club before making our final descent to the hotel.

Our hotel was a guesthouse with a handful of rooms that overlooked the valley. We were tucked into a sweet twin room on the top floor where we showered and rested before going to the only place in town for dinner, a pub about a half mile down the busy road.

We were both exhausted and considered eating a couple of Rx Bars and going to sleep early.

But after a rest, we rallied and walked down to The Rising Sun for dinner.

I had a chickpea burger and chips and Kandace had lentil cottage pie. (Yes again to more vegetarian options.)

We ended with whisky (me) and gin (Kandace) before dragging ourselves back to the Cleeve Hill Hotel and hobbling up the stairs to bed.

The post The Cotswold Way: Day 2 Stanton to Cleeve Hill appeared first on Alison Chino.

2022 has already been an amazing year of walking!

In addition to the gorgeous walks we do around here on the weekends, I have walked The Cotswold Way in England and The Portuguese Camino in Portugal and Spain!

And the year of walking is not over yet. Next week we are heading to Switzerland to do the Via Alpina and in September, I’m leading a circular walk in the Lake District.

Even though I’ll be walking this week in the Alps, in this space I am sharing my journey along The Cotswold Way from when Kandace and I walked it together back at the beginning of May.

I’ve been reliving it this past month as I’ve written these posts and I’m excited to share them with you. Starting today, they will be published every day for seven days, one day for each day of the walk. I hope you enjoy reading about it and even more than that, I hope it makes you want to go for a walk!

Getting outside continues to be the best way I know of to feel better, both about myself and the world around me.

So cheers to walking!

XOXO
Alison

The Cotswold Way

110 Miles from Chipping Campden to Bath:

Day 1 Chipping Campden to Stanton (10 miles)

So this was our fifth time walking together. 6th if you count when we walked virtually together during the pandemic.

Once we finished the Cotswold Way we had walked over 500 miles together.

So now we are a bit like an old married couple.

Kandace knows I can’t have caffeine or sugar after 2pm,

and I know that she can drink a pint at lunch and still outpace me for the rest of the afternoon.

She will carry more stuff than she needs and I’ll end up being without something I have to buy a sub-standard version of in a tiny shop.

Walking together is familiar. Not at all stressful.

A favorite pair of slippers that you pop on at the end of the day and sigh with relief.

Only instead of slippers, they are hiking boots

Kandace and I both work freelance jobs from home, which means we have the flexibility to work at all hours of the day and to be available to our clients whenever they need us, including weekends and holidays.

That flexibility also means we can schedule walking trips and do work ahead of time that frees us to get out of town.

So frequently we find ourselves texting back and forth that it’s time to put another walk on the calendar.

We both enjoy the countdown to the walk. (Two weeks until I turn my out of office reply on!)

We love getting gear sorted and prepped. (Are you bringing rain pants this time? I bought new après-hike shoes!)

I enjoy the obsessive planning of our itinerary, reading guidebooks, maps and websites to find the perfect places to stop, sleep and eat.

And I go a bit crazy for the challenge of sorting an overwhelming number of miles into manageable day hikes, breaking up a long stretch of trail into sections, trying to accurately anticipate how much I can push myself each day.

I bought a guidebook for The Cotswold Way while I was still living in Illinois, before I had even moved to England! I knew I would just have to box it up for the move, but I was ready to get started on my research.

When the book arrived, I skimmed the sections and elevation to figure out that we could probably walk it in about a week. I imagined what places with names like Chipping Campden and Cleeve Hill would look like. My fascination with the Cotswolds (and its adorably named towns) loomed large for me in the weeks and months leading up to our move.

I googled images and made copious notes. Then I packed away my guidebook along with all my other books to be moved across the ocean and rediscovered in a new place and time.

At some point in late January, I texted Kandace:

Want to come walk the English countryside with me? You stay in pubs almost every night!

By early February, she had her flight booked.

Book those pubs! she texted back.

When winter melted away and spring arrived for us both, we’d be walking together again.

Only the first night we didn’t stay in a pub. We stayed in a darling little shepherd’s hut in someone’s back garden.

We set out on a bright Sunday morning from Chipping Campden. Taido and Simon hiked our first six miles with us to Broadway. We had perfect weather. England welcomed Kandace with lush green fields full of sheep.

It’s so fun to me to see someone else take in these country scenes for the first time. Because I never tire of rock walls, yellow flowers, baby lambs and country cottages, I love for someone else to share in my enthusiasm.

We started our walk with a gentle climb to a tower, a folly actually, which is an ornamental building or something that was built just for aesthetics. (Who knew such a thing existed?)

Then we descended into the charming village of Broadway for a pub lunch at The Horse and Hound.

(Just like the magazine in Notting Hill!)

After lunch, we said goodbye to Taido and Simon, who walked back to Chipping Campden to drive home, and we headed south a few more miles to Stanton, a tiny picturesque hamlet.

We quickly found the cottage labeled The Old Post House and were met by our hosts there, who have set up two rooms for walkers in their back garden, each one complete with twin beds, a tiny kitchen, armchairs and a bathroom. One is The Garden Room and the other room is The Shepherd’s Hut, where we stayed.

We sat outside in the back garden with their dogs, reading and napping before having a picnic dinner and going to bed.

The adventure had begun.

Here we were on our first night after walking past yellow rapeseed fields and baby lambs snuggled with their mamas.

It was exactly as I had imagined it months ago – which things seldom are – but the predictability of how lovely it is to walk from village to village in the UK is precisely what I love about it.

And I am not alone. National Trails in the UK receive 83 million visits every year, and The Cotswold Trail alone attracts 150,000 walkers every year.

May is one of the most popular months on these trails and it’s not hard to understand why. The light is hanging on past 9pm and the rain is not as cold or as settled in. We had lots of sunshine, and were even down to our t-shirts and shorts on some days.

I fell asleep proud that so far the Cotswolds were living up to my vision of them, grateful that I had not oversold their quaint whimsy to Kandace.

We were both ready for more.

The post The Cotswold Way: Day 1 from Chipping Campden to Stanton appeared first on Alison Chino.