Holiday cottages in the Cotswolds - Cotswold cottage holidays
Holiday cottages in the Cotswolds:
The Cotswolds are a traditional location in England for cottage holidays because of the beautiful green pasture, the mild climate and its depth of history.
The Cotswolds area is rich in tourist activities with dozens upon dozens of places to visit, things to do, views to enjoy.
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The Cotswolds is a range of hills in England that has been quite rightly designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (an "AONB"). It is no idle statement to say that you can spend a lifetime exploring the holiday cottages in the Cotswolds, discovering the beauty, history and culture of this gorgeous holiday location, because the Cotswolds encompasses such a large geographic area in the heart of England, comprising many historically rich counties that have helped to form the society and culture of the British Isles. Many people visit Oxfordshire and think they have experienced the Cotswolds, but actually the counties of Somerset, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Wiltshire and Warwickshire also form the Cotswolds.
The Cotswolds isn't just about the place, it's about the people
The Cotswolds isn't just made up of counties, it is made up of warm, friendly and welcoming people, people who themselves have made this country great, and who will welcome you into their holiday home like a long lost friend. These cottage dwelling folk sit around their roaring log fires on a dusky Sunday afternoon, toasting teacakes and muffins, remembering their rustic farming tales, sipping on a refreshing cup of tea, and smoking pipes tamped down with a whiff of Old Toby.
And the geography. These aren't called the Cotswolds Hills for nothing, bounded by the Severn Valley, Avon, Stroud, and dipping down to the sea as you approach Somerset, the most rustic of the Cotswolds counties. You can recall the ancient times, trekking along the Cotswolds Way, carrying a staff of bent Yew, tramping over hills and dales, speaking the poetry of Yates and Keats, as you meet farm hands tending their sheep and dewy meadows, as if these honest folk came from a different age.
The Cotswolds - steeped in history
The Cotswolds has its fair share of history in its major cities and towns of Oxford, Stroud, Cirencester, Lechlade, Fairford, Tetbury, Bath, Chipping Sodbury, Marshfield, Beverston and the Thames Valley. You could enjoy an epic holiday cottage tour, taking in these bastions of English history, retiring in the evening to the warmth of your comfortable hearth, taking early to bed and dreaming of times gone by and the warmth of the welcome you have experienced.
But your cottage holiday will be best remembered when you move out to the rolling hills of this green and verdant countryside, driving over delightful hillocks to the rustic towns and villages that make the Cotswolds the heart of this great land. Nobody can stay in a holiday cottage in Burford and keep an unemotional clear head, you will be taken in by this beautiful village as you walk to church with the sound of ringing bells in the morning, finally understanding why the Woolsack in the House of Lords came from this great place, when the wool industry was still important to our financial future.
A never ending rustic journey
There are so many other Cotswolds villages to take cottage holidays, such as Cirencester, Bourton-on-the-Wold, Chipping Norton and Broadway. There are so many small and large yellow limestone cottages to choose from some able to sleep small family groups of three, four and five, and other bigger manor houses and luxury holiday cottages that let you visit the Cotswolds in groups of six, seven or eight. The villages of the Cotswolds are well known to seasoned world weary travellers, revealing their many hidden secrets. The villages of Biddestone, Painswick, Winchcombe and Woodstock, taunt you with un spoilt historical churches like Northleach which is known to locals as the "Cathedral of the Cotswolds".
As you tour the area, you have to take in the rural charm of the market towns and villages of Moreton-in-Marsh, Winchcombe and Chipping Campden, the home of Arts and Crafts movement founder William Morris. As you gaze out of Broadway Tower you are taken back through the centuries to the pastoral beauty that made people settle in this part of England.