The Cotswolds

Tourists flock to this beautiful country region in the summer, and for good reason.  The whole area seems to have been frozen in time, somewhere in the 1500s.  Tiny towns lined with stone houses and churches are scattered amid gorgeous, classic English rolling hills.  There are rivers to wade and hills to climb, horseback riding trips, and public footpaths criss-crossing from town to town.

There are enough quirky museums, even zoos, antique shops, tea rooms, churches and historic sites to spend days in the Cotswolds alone.  If you want a slower-paced few days' respite from the busyness of a city, stay in a bed and breakfast and drink in the views.

Our favorite spots in the Cotswolds include:

The Mechanical Music Museum.  Tour an amazing collection of antique music boxes that delight and amaze! More here.

Ancient Roman Villlages.  There are a number to choose from, all tucked away in beautiful countryside and very evocative.

Burton-on-the-Water.  As picturesque a village as it gets!  Fun shops and tea rooms, too.

The Rollright Stones.   An ancient stone circle set in the middle of farmland, with great folktales to go with it.  Know the stories before you go to get the full experience!  

Hailes Abbey.  By far our favorite of all the ruined abbeys in England.  Set quietly in the middle of farmland, the ruins of the once rich, huge, and famous abbey (the most popular pilgrimage site besides Canterbury), are now forgotten and overgrown with vines.  The audio guide is awesome, giving you a more vivid idea of monastic life than anything else we know.  The nearby Medieval church is a remarkable site itself, and it also boasts a labyrinth in the grounds, through which you can wander and ponder like Medieval pilgrims. 

Belas Knap Longbarrow.  Take a short hike to a stone age burial mound, set in an evocative, beautiful spot.  You can crawl into the barrow a little ways, and even climb up on top, have a seat on the grass and take a moment for some existential meditation while you stare at the views.

Down House

In a tiny country village just outside of London, lies Down House, the home of Charles Darwin. A visit the house is not just a lovely dose of countryside quiet, but also a fascinating journey into the life and character of the world's most famous scientist.  

His home life was classic Victorian, complete with children running to and fro, sledding down the stairs, and games of backgammon every night.  Tour his greenhouses, where he undertook so many experiments, and wander the garden path where he did so much of his thinking.  An audio guide walks you through the furnished part of the house, and a self-guided exhibit upstairs tells you more about the man and his work. 

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Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury is a quintessential cathedral and one of our favorites.  It's set in the center of pedestrianized, cobblestone Canterbury town, which still maintains its Medieval flavor.  The Cathedral itself is huge, dramatic, home to lots of interesting relics, and of course a famous murder site (Thomas Becket in 1170).  An audio guide walks you around the cathedral pointing out the coolest stuff.

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Dover

Dover is a destination with a great variety of amazing sites: an early medieval castle, secret WWII tunnels, and the famous White Cliffs.   All these sites are interactive and kid-friendly. 

Dover Castle, which is over a thousand years old, has been recently completely refurnished to portray the castle in its Medieval heyday -- this is the only castle we know of in England where you can really get the flavor of life in the Middle Ages (it might surprise you that it was full of bright colors!). 


Right next to Dover Castle are the Secret Wartime Tunnels that Churchill had dug into the cliffs of Dover during WWII.  Since Dover was really close to France, it was prime land for watching the enemy's actions across the channel.  Military personnel worked and lived inside the tunnels for months on end, successfully keeping them secret for the entirety of the war.  They are preserved as they were during the war, and you can visit by guided tour.  A truly unique experience that brings to life the wartime experience.  Don't miss it! 


The famous chalk-white Cliffs of Dover are an awe-inspiring sight, and you can walk along the tops of them for a mile or two.  Great spot for a picnic!  Familiarize yourself with the classic English tune, "The White Cliffs of Dover" so you can sing it while you're there.

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Brighton

England's famous seaside resort dates back to Georgian times.  You may know it from all the Jane Austen characters who dream of running off there.  This is the classic English seaside experience, with a carnival pier, a long pebble beach, lots of shops, good seafood, and the obligatory Flake 99. 

Brighton is home to the unique and bizarre "Pleasure Palace" that King George IV built when he was prince. What do you do when you have all the money in the world and nothing to do until your crazy Dad dies? You do whatever you want. And I like to think of this palace as a Prince's version of a lego castle. It's huge and absolutely amazing inside - it's all elaborate chinese and Indian-inspired architecture that really just looks like some rich jerk said, "I want a massive palace with gold ceilings and secret passageways and the world's biggest kitchen and the world's best chef to cook me disgustingly elaborate feasts." And that's pretty much what happened.

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Warwick Castle and Warwick town

Warwick Castle (avoid embarrassment by pronouncing it correctly: "War-ick"), the largest castle in England still in one piece, is a grand piece of architecture and history!  The Earls of Warwick, who lived at this castle, have historically been some of the most powerful nobles in English history, at times even more powerful than the king himself!  

Warwick castle was a private residence for centuries, famous in the Victorian era for extravagant parties and being the center of aristocratic gossip and scandal.  Now it is open to the the public, furnished as it was in its Victorian heyday, and you (yes, you!) can wander the grounds, the house, the guard towers, the torture chamber, with your imagination (and costumed re-enactors) conjuring up a dramatic past.  Warwick castle is one of the most popular tourist sites outside of London, and it actually deserves it.  So cool! 

Warwick, the town around the castle, is also very historic and has managed to preserve its Medieval flavor nicely.  Wandering around Warwick is like stepping back in time.  Plenty of museums, parks, horse races, antique shops, and--of course--ghost tours await you.  Our first visit to Warwick is what actually inspired us to move to Warwickshire later.  You'll love it!

Extras:

The Mill Garden. There's a gorgeous garden along the river below the castle, with a great view.  Escape the crowd and take an extra hour there to unwind, reflect and soak up the English countryside.

For an extra awesome view of the castle rent a rowboat from St. Nicholas Park upstream of the castle and row practically right up to the castle walls.

There's a good ghost tour that runs a few nights a week.  Coordinate your timing if you're into it!  

Recommended Reading: 

 Terry Deary's Horrible Histories: Stratford-upon-Avon (fun kid's history book that actually talks a lot about Warwick)

About the legend of Guy of Warwick, here. 

Stonehenge

One of the most iconic images across the globe, Stonehenge was built about 5000 years ago, over the course of over a thousand years. Just last year, it was revealed that archaeologists have uncovered a prehistoric village a couple miles from Stonehenge - and it is thought that the people who lived in this village built the henge.

  

Read more about how Stonehenge was built here.

Seeing such an iconic site as Stongehenge is thrilling.  But be prepared, it's full of hoards of tourists, and you certainly cannot go anywhere close to the stones.

There are a lot of really cool sites nearby, including:
Woodhenge, Old Sarum (Norman hilltop fort), Salisbury Cathedral, and Avebury.

Bath

Nothing beats Bath.  It is one of only two World Heritage cities in Britian (the other is Edinburgh), and it deserves the recognition! Bath was the Hollywood of the early 1800s, where the rich would go to see and be seen.  Fashionable ladies strolled the avenues, and available young aristocrats looking for life partners spent nearly every night at the "pump rooms," dancing and mingling.  It would have been a sight to see.

Nowadays, it is a different kind of site to see!  Bath has been a popular resort destination since Roman times at least!  Hot springs in the ground inspired the Romans to build a massive bath house for public bathing - this has been excavated and you can visit it - it's surprisingly similar to public pool complexes today.  In the Middle Ages, people build another bath house (not knowing that only seven inches away the Roman baths lay hidden underground!), and then, after Queen Mary bathed in the waters and miraculously overcame her infertility in the 1700s, Bath became to place to be.  Aristocrats from all over the country spent their summers there, bathing in the mineral water, drinking it, shopping, and socializing.  During this heyday, pretty much the whole town was built up - and now it is one impressive monolith of grand limestone Georgian architecture.  The city's historic center is just small enough to get around everywhere on foot (and lots of fascinating walking tours help guide you around).  

But the cool thing about Bath is that it's full of really great museums that are sometimes half empty of tourists, or in the case of the delightful Museum of Bath at Work, totally empty!

The Bizarre Bath Comedy Walk at night is highly recommended -- a hilarious evening tour around the town!  You'll need to stay the night in Bath to do this, which will make you happy.    

Of course we mustn't forget Bath's most famous champion, Jane Austen herself.  She lived in Bath for a while, as did most of the characters in her books.  Bath is a Jane Austen mecca for fans, and a few museums and tours bring the novels alive.  If you want your trip to Bath to be REALLY cool, I highly recommend the following:

Recommended Reading:

About the eccentric man who "made" Bath, Beau Nash: here. 

 

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Oxford or Cambridge

A visit to this intellectual center of the world is memorable!  Oxford and/or Cambridge have this back-in-time feel with a ridiculously huge number of historic buildings.  Aside from touring the university (which is actually a collection of rather exclusive colleges) and gaping at the architecture all around you, there are a number of free and fascinating museums.  The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is the home to Guy Fawkes' lantern (with which he almost succeeded in blowing up Parliament in 1603)!  Harry Potter's Great Hall was filmed in Oxford -- take the tour if you like.

Here's a random sampling of some of Oxford's alumni, whose footsteps you can walk in:

John Locke    

Percy Shelley

John Wycliffe  

Lewis Carroll  

JRR Tolkein

CS Lewis  

John Donne  

Thomas Hobbes

Hugh Grant  

Sir Walter Raleigh  

Sister Wendy Beckett

Rowan Atkinson  

Jethro Tull  

Oscar Wilde

Dr Seuss  

Stephen Hawking  

Bill Clinton

Oxford is our preferred University city. With busy bicycle traffic, an awesome botanical center, and great pubs, including the Eagle and Child, where CS Lewis, JRR Tolkein, et al. would sit around discussing their books.  Good fish and chips, too. 

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Stratford-upon-Avon

For some reason, everyone knows the town where Shakespeare was born.  Sure, you don't know the birthplace of Thomas Edison, Gandhi, Columbus, or JK Rowling, but you DO know where Shakespeare was born!  This fact is a tribute to Stratford-upon-Avon's tourist bureau.  The marketing of the town is genius, but, (and here I must strongly disagree with other guidebooks like Rick Steves), this is no tourist trap but a place oozing with charm and history that is also "real".

We lived close by, and we never got sick of this place.  It's got everything.  You could spend half a day, you could spend a week.  It's an absolutley charming town with a world-class theater company, quaint shops, great restaurants, fun activities, street performers, markets, row boats on the river, horse racing, and all that's in addition to the retinue of Shakespeare-related properties you can visit, all of which are really different and really interesting.

The town has a quirky flavor, and tons of charm, besides being a grand celebration of all things Shakespeare.  You could spend the day visiting only sites about Shakespeare, from his birthplace to his grave, but simply wandering the town is also a delight.  The town is chock-full of fascinating little spots to visit, from Europe's oldest magic shop to a butterfly house to a barge cruise on the River Avon.  There are also ghost tours every night and several houses that claim to be England's most haunted building!
 

A visit to the Royal Shakespeare Company in the recently remodeled Swan Theatre is not to be missed.  Seriously.  Even if you don't like theater, you simply must go.  You'll thank me later.   This is Shakespeare performed by the best in the world.  You must get your tickets in advance!  Rsc. org.uk. 

Recommended Restaurants:
Carluccio's on Waterside - best Italian hot chocolate north of Italy
Hussain's Indian Restaurant on Chapel Street - perhaps best in UK?  get peshwari naan
Garrick Inn Pub - 14th century pub, awesome atmosphere, classic English experience
Barnaby's Fish and Chips on Waterside - famous fish and chips
Cafe Rouge - delicious French food, breakfast is especially good (get the croque madam)
Check out the candy/fudge shops in Henley Street near Shakespeare's birthplace

Recommended Reading:
Read the Shakespeare play you are going to see at the theater.  It makes the experience so much cooler!

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