Today has been an amazing roller coaster ride, and of course ended up wonderfully.
We left our lovely Welsh seaside town, still blowing a gale, and decided not to take the shortest route via motorways as our SatNav wanted to directed us, and we drove thru the middle of Wales, as we journeyed to the Cotswolds.
The road was winding with moderately interesting landscape, and we pressed on, as we intended to spend most of the day (after a 3.5hr drive) in the Cotswolds….
Then the rain started, and I mean a solid English downpour, …. at this stage, we decided to stop at a roadside service centre to avoid the terrible road conditions,…. after an hour’s stop lunching & of course, uploading yesterdays blog on a very slow wireless internet connection… we pressed onto Cheltenham .. our proposed overnight destination.
Yesterday when we booked the B&B in Cheltenham, we were having significant trouble finding a nice B&B with a vacancy on a Friday night, so we ended up booking one on the edge of Cheltenham which looked OK, from the 2 pictures on their website…
Due to the wet weather, we decided to check in early, and hope the weather may clear …. however our stress levels rose as we found Cheltenham was a large city, and our 4 star B&B was very suburban, with a rear pokie room, on a noisy road … what a shock after 3 weeks in the peaceful British countryside…..
Needing to get out, we dropped of our clothes, and headed for an afternoon drive to Bibury to look around…. by that stage the weather cleared and so we walked around the township of Bibury … found a wonderful old country church build in 1600’s, with roots back to 500AD…
Here is a short video of bell practice is below, remember to turn up the sound.
Then thru the back gate of the church, we stumbled on the Bibury Court Hotel, a wonderful old mansion built in 1633 (to which were invited gentry and even kings), and in beautiful grounds…. the floors may go uphill in a few places, & just makes the place more authentic.
So peaceful, and exactly want we had originally wanted to celebrate my birthday 
… after a bit of discussion, we stepped inside, enquired about the rates, and vacancy, and were offered an executive king room for half price (as a last minute bookings) … so the deed was settled, we checked in (included was dinner & breakfast).
We also discovered that the likes of Hugh Grant and Liz Hurley and other notables live in the area as well. The area is beautiful, though a bit chocolate box pretty, everything looks just right, from the neat lawns, stone bridges, babbling brook and the friendly ducks.
We had dinner in the hotel restaurant – 3 scrumptious courses, beautifully served. Where we were sitting enabled us to watch the staff discussing the needs of their guests, it gave us a few laughs at times, as these waiters with French accents tried to communicate in English, and all getting a bit flustered, it was a big night for them with many guests.
The manager guy, who we think might also be the owner of the hotel, reminded us of Archie from the TV show – ‘Monarch of the Glen’, and yes he was a bit of a spunk (this is Liz adding this bit!!).
After dinner we drove the 30 minutes back to Cheltenham to collect our possessions (& pay the cancellation fee L), and then return to relax in these wonderful surroundings… sorry for so many pictures, just needed to show the beauty & how majestic the place is. … this night mist across the lawns; then waterwall; pity the hammocks were too wet to sit in to write this post….
