May 15 - The Cotswold Way Old Sodbury to Cold Ashton

Well, I can't provide photos from the trail because I didn't walk the trail. A muscle just to the back of my left hip (a glute?) is in pain. Even Aleve is not helping.
Elsie at the Old Sodbury Hotel suggested that I take the Stagecoach 620 from the stop up the street to Bath. There, I'd be able to get a taxi to my next accommodation. The bus ride was fun. We went to several small towns. The names of town in this area are creative. Here is a screen capture from Google Map, to give you an idea.

I laughed out loud when I read Pucklechurch on a directional sign we passed.
This bus was clean and, when I took the photo, had few passengers. More folks climbed on board as we got closer to Bath. Most everyone was around my age or older.


We passed this house being engulfed by Wysteria.

It took about an hour to reach Bath. Since it was 10-ish, I went into Cafe Nero for a coffee. This is a espresso bar, so I had a large Cappuccino and poke around on my phone. Then I walked through a shopping district near the bus station. About 12:30, I stopped in at an Italian restaurant and enjoyed a small Margherita pizza with a small (175 ml) glass of Primativo wine.
I stopped in at a bank to try to swap my old £10 note for a new one. No go. I needed to have an account with them. They suggested I go to a Currency Exchange shop. So I will try that when I'm back here tomorrow.
Now I was ready to get a taxi and head for Hill Farm just west of Cold Ashton. Success! A bit pricey at £20, but worth it. I took a few pictures while in Bath. I'll put them in with tomorrow 's post.
The Hill Farm is absolutely charming! It is literally on the Cotswold Way. 

The farm looks out over the pastures across the way, complete with cows.

The occasional screech is that of a Pheasant.  There are lovely plantings including a gorgeous Clematis. 

This place is idyllic.
Tomorrow, I'm going ride to Bath with Nic. I'll get there a little earlier than planned. I will do some research to find another coffee shop. Steve plans to arrive around noon by train.
The Adventure continues!

Comments

  1. PaulaMay 16, 2023 at 7:01 AM

    A pulled muscle will not keep you down. You still got to see beautiful rolling hills and puffy clouds.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

May 23 - 24 Homeward Bound

A vacation must come to an end. How else can you have another one? With that amazing thought, I thought I'd share our exit from Great Britain a.k.a. The United Kingdom. We left our hotel after breakfast, and dragged our suitcases a half mile to the bus depot, where we boarded the air Express to Heathrow. We had reserved seats in row 3. The bus never really got full. More half of the passengers got off in Bristol. From there to London Heathrow airport was non-stop on the M4 highway. My friend, Carl, took a similar bus from Oxford to LHR two weeks ago. The trip was uneventful. We arrived about 3 pm, retrieved our suitcases and set off to find a Hoppa bus. These buses constantly circle the airport perimeter picking and dropping off passengers at hotels. It costs £6 each. We found the bus stop, and waited at least 40 minutes for a bus. Then we sat on the bus waiting for our hotel to appear. It did, eventually. The whole process took much longer than we anticipated. After checking in at
Read more

Day 2 of 8 Thames Path West - Kemble to Ashton Keynes

Image
May 3, 2023 After a delightful breakfast, we were picked up at 9:30am by Lenny. She made us take a photo of her sign on the cab so that we'd have her phone number in case we ran into difficulties. This was fortuitous! She drove us to a path that lead us to the headwaters of the Thames, which was dry today. The Thames Path officially started here. We soon noticed that we were walking beside a small, clean, swiftly moving brook. This was the beginnings of the Thames. We continued to walk, and walk. We had hoped to reach Somerset Keynes for lunch. We were south of Ewes resting on a bench, when a young lady with a very wet, muddy dog walked toward us. "Beyond the first gate it's quite muddy and the water is deep. It went over the top of my wellies." We adventured out on our own to see how bad the conditions were. They were bad.    After struggling to get thru by hanging on to barbwire fencing (!),
Read more

May 18-20 Bristol

Image
We took the train from Bath to Bristol. It was a very short trip. Bristol is to the west of Bath, on the Bristol Channel. There is a Maritime museum here that features the story and restoration of the SS Great Britain. You will read more about this shortly. These first photos were taken on our first day, as we explored the area across from our hotel.  Where old docks were located, the city has created a tourist attraction as well as an educational center about science and global warming.  The pedestrian footbridge has "love locks" fastened everywhere! We went out to find some dinner. We discovered a street with many pubs.  They all had seating outdoors in the back.  We could look down the street and see hundreds of people outside enjoying the sunshine. The next day, we spent most of the day at the Maritime Museum, checking out the SS Great Britain.  This ship was the first to have an iron hull and was propelled by steam with a direct shaft propeller.  This ship was a luxury l
Read more