A side trip to Oxford, the Cotswolds and Stratford-Upon-Avon …

An early start on this Friday morning, aboard the bus by 7.45am.

We headed west out of London along the A40 to Oxford.

When in Oxford when strolled around the town centre. Our guide showed us the exteriors of some of the old residential colleges and then we went inside one of them to see the dinning hall and inner courtyards. The old library buildings are amazing, lined with statues of Roman Emperors as well as holding thousands of ancient books inside.



We saw the pub which was Inspector Morse’s “Local” in the television series as well as a few courtyards inside colleges where episodes had been filmed. A V6 powered four poster bed was seen driving around the centre of town, how odd.



Next we visited a tiny Cotswold village. The roads into the village are very narrow (I don’t know how the bus made it in) and all the buildings have thatched rooves. It was quite an amazing site. Of course after I had finished shopping the in the local store/post office, I found Leigh in the local pub sampling the local brew (again).



The bus then moved on to Stratford, which is a great little town. There was just something about its buildings and atmosphere that was quite quaint. I could go back and spend more time here, tho not necessarily on Shakespeare stuff.

We visited Shakespeare’s house, which has been restored from scratch and is now a museum of the time when he lived here.



There were some great shops in Stratford, one especially that has terrific chess sets and hand made people (not dolls as such). They were expensive but when I win lotto… :-)



We also visited Anne Hathoway’s cottage where she lived as a girl. The gardens were great. We rolled in home at about 7pm, tired as usual.