Delightful Cotswolds

After breakfast this morning we loaded up the 3008, adjusted the settings on the dash display to show miles instead of kilometres and set off for Cirencester the largest town in the Cotswolds.

Having left the M4 as we neared Cirencester the drive through the country side was quite delightful with trees partially overhanging the road, lush green paddocks on either side of the road and numerous stone houses some of some size.

Cirencester was very attractive reminding us of Ambleside which we visited on our last trip, the difference being that the buildings were constructed of light coloured stone whereas in Ambleside most were of dark grey slate stone.

The women's fashion shops had displays of garments which Sherry greatly admired but as the saying goes "going shopping with your husband is like going hunting with the game warden"

We left Cirencester late in the morning and again driving through beautiful Cotswold countryside arrived in Tetbury a smaller town in the district.

The buildings were similar to those we had seen earlier in the day and the town had numerous antique outlets - having looked at residences for sale in the area in land agent's window displays the style and age of these large homes (6 bedrooms was the norm rather than the exception) almost dictated that they would be furnished more with antiques rather than modern furniture.

If you had £1-2million you too could own one of these estates and your vehicle of choice if what we saw on the roads was any indication would be a Land or Range Rover

Leaving Tetbury we crossed the Severn Bridge into Wales and headed for our accommodation, this creating some issues as the phone number the host had given us was wrong and we could not make contact and we didn't have the exact address other than it was in an apartment block in Lloyd George Rd, a road that had at least 6-10 such multi-storey blocks - the intrepid travellers finally made contact and their heart rate slowly come back to normal.

Late in the afternoon we strolled down to Cardiff Bay in temperatures that reminded us of winter back home and had dinner before stocking up at the Tesco supermarket, returning to the apartment content having enjoyed what we had seen - as Sherry said "the beauty and tranquility of the English countryside characterised by the narrow lanes and stone cottages and the country estates is quite overwhelming"