today's world traveler continues our
explorations of Great Britain we're
travelling from London to the Cotswolds
leaving from Paddington Station arriving
shortly in the picturesque town of
Cheltenham it's just about a two-hour
train ride and there is direct service
on the intercity train which is quite
comfortable as you can see here as long
as you're avoiding rush hours and
holidays you can pretty much have your
choice of seats on these spacious trains
arriving in Cheltenham the train station
is quite close to the center of town and
what a charming town it is we'll have a
look at Cheltenham and travel out to
some nearby villages in the Cotswolds
and then later in the programme will
return to London to visit the historic
River town of Greenwich so stay tuned to
another exciting adventure with Hawaii
Geographic society's world traveler one
of the best ways to find out some
information on a place is visit the
information office and talk to somebody
Cheltenham we've got quite a lot on
offer here we've got primarily the
shopping and lots of people come from
miles around to look at the shopping
we've also got a lot of Regency
architecture and this is one of the
finest examples in England so it's
historically and well worth visiting
Cheltenham
also we've got superb buildings like the
Pitt Ville pump room where they have a
park and they have pitbull on Sundays
every Sunday throughout the year and
have carriage rides horse and lando
carriage rides around
and also um bands playing and it's a fun
place to go not just for the tourists
that the residents as well we've also
got one tenth of chart nummies parks and
gardens we've also just one written in
bloom so as you see outside you can see
all the flowers that we've got and this
August we're in on Tom floral which is
the European written in bloom if you
like and to be ever hopeful that we win
that this year also got interesting
museums the Chatham has a lot to offer
it's got theater stand in there's lots
of lovely restaurants very good shopping
too summer really chart them is the
Center for the Cotswolds and we oak well
this is called that because it's very
easy accessible to all the villages from
public transport and not only that we
also organize our own tours into the
Cotswolds the Cotswolds means it's the
range of hills and this stretches from
bath in the far side at well in up to
chipping Camden on the north and it's a
98 mile stretch and you can look it but
it's probably better and easier than a
bus or in a car you can go around all
the little villages and they're all um
unique if you like and they've got
different features but one of the main
features of the buildings in that area
is the Cotswolds honey colored stone and
they're really pretty and also we've got
the such in between so you've got the
older sort of stonework and then the
fetching
as well Horton on the water which is the
Little Venice of the Cotswolds if you go
you probably see that the looking river
wind dress shows through the center and
then you've got lots of little bridges
that go over the the water or icy stayed
stream but it's actually the river so a
lot of visitors go there and it's one of
the main honey pots of the area and it's
very very busy
we've got other smaller villages like
Broadway which is the sort of antique
center of the consul's if you like which
come which is where the local Sula
castle is which is only seven miles from
here and that's very nice it's got a
really old new church which is nearly
the size of a cacique Cathedral which is
really super and we're seeing then we've
got little villages like Stanton in
Stanway which are absolutely idyllic I
mean there are absolute dreams my water
ID in that area in lots of Americans
came over just to take these lovely
cottages and they are beautiful you
wouldn't see anything like that out of
this area then we've also got a chipping
Camdon in the north which is a super
place to visit and numerous other places
within the Cotswolds range so there's
such a lot to see so what's the
advantage of using Chaplin as a place
rather than Stratford or Oxford
well Stratford and Oxford a very very
overpopulated anyway and once they reach
a capacity I think you know that's it
here at least you still got the you know
still able to move around we sort of
control tourism where they just take
everybody or they just descend there
anywhere because they are so famous so
if you want a bit of quieter place to
start with you know as a base then it's
it's good to come to charm
this tourist information office is quite
the busy place but they're very helpful
and efficient in answering your
questions great idea it's located in the
City Hall right on Crescent Terrace on
the promenade in the center of town in a
typical building constructed in the
Regency style we stayed at a
bed-and-breakfast right near the heart
of town very reasonable accommodations
very comfortable it's like you've got
your own private home when you're
staying in one of Britain's bed and
breakfasts and as the name says
breakfast comes with the meal in our
case they also served up a wonderful
dinner you can find these kinds of
accommodations from the tourist
information offices or from various
guidebooks the center of Cheltenham is a
bustling commercial area and it also has
the bus station that propels us into the
countryside as we up on the municipal
bus the public bus and take a ride out
into the rolling hills of the Cotswolds
to visit several of the smaller villages
for which the area is most famous this
easy public transportation makes
Cheltenham a very good place to stay if
you're traveling by train and public
transit on your tour of Great Britain
for you can take the bus ride to a whole
series of little villages nearby will be
going to winch comb you could go on to
Broadway and Chipping Camden but now
we've arrived at one of the most famous
little towns bourton-on-the-water the
Little River wind rush flows through the
center of town and like nearly all the
villages in the Cotswolds it's
constructed of this honey-colored
limestone
as you'll see it's a very popular place
to visit particularly amongst the
British as a holiday town but here we
are in the middle of July and it's not
all that uncomfortably crowded it's a
real human-scale kind of place
everything is small and compact you
could see most of this town in a half an
hour but you'll be drawn to its peaceful
charm and want to spend most of the day
here sitting back relaxing you might
have lunch or have tea feed the animals
watch their antics in the stream do some
shopping and stroll about one of the
main scenic attractions here is the
architecture ivy-covered houses and
steep sleet roofs and solid stone walls
constructed of limestone and there are
some legends about this area one of them
about a giant who lives in town and I
think we just got a glimpse of this
large person walking amongst the small
village or is it perhaps a miniature
village let's take a closer look and see
if you can tell the difference between
these miniatures and the real thing
that's right there's a tiny little model
village here important on the water it
even has a tiny version of the Windrush
river flowing through it
it's a funny experience to walk through
that miniature village it makes you feel
like a giant and it tends to sharpen
your eyes so that you can further
appreciate the unique architectural
qualities of this amazing area it's a
peaceful place and when you get that
kind of a bird's-eye view over the
buildings you can take in the whole
thing at once and see the roofs the
streets the lanes the yards all in a
special miniature context it's classic
architecture based on an earlier Gothic
style but developed in its own special
way here in the Cotswolds and it's great
fun for a little kid to go chomping
through this miniature village but it's
also a lot of fun for an adult these
tiny models are made in the same
material and the same style as all of
the other structures in the Cotswolds
it's made of a special kind of limestone
that's dug up right in the area
continuing our look at
bourton-on-the-water the most charming
part of this town is the little river
that flows through the center of it
there's ducks and there's a green lawn
and there's the miniature bridges that
you can walk over and there's lots of
little shops and cafes lining the banks
of the Windrush River as it flows
through town
nowadays the economy here relies mostly
on tourism but it's also still an
agricultural area surrounded by the
rolling green hills the pasture lands
and the farms of the Cotswolds
for hundreds of years it's been an
important wool production area sheep
thrive here unlike on the continent for
in Great Britain there were no wolves to
worry about and there was relatively
little warfare compared to the more
fiery activities happening on
continental Europe therefore during the
15th and 16th centuries this was a very
important sheep growing area and wool
production thrived and even today wool
is still produced here reporting our
public bus we're going to channel along
to the next little village on our
itinerary which will be winch calm
there's a lot of choices to pick from we
could have gone to Broadway or chipping
Camden or any number of other little
villages but let's go have a look at
winch comb it only takes about 45
minutes to get from one side of the
Cotswolds to the other there's some of
those sheep we talked about they also
manufactured wool starting from the 17th
and 18th centuries so it was part of the
Industrial Revolution as well the little
village of winch comb is quite charming
as are all these little towns in the
Cotswolds even in the rain and yes it is
Great Britain and it's July so there's a
fair chance of rain any time
you're rolling through the Cotswolds but
it's worth it just to see the sheer
pleasure of these beautiful buildings
and friendly people and very colorful
flower gardens this completes our brief
visit to the Cotswolds