jcifuentes

I'd like to spend 2 or 3 days in the cotswolds after flying into Heathrow. After that, I will have a couple days in London. I would like to know if the north cotswolds is preferable to the south if the visit is brief. I won't be driving and need to know the best way to get there. Has anyone taken this trip and could make suggestions?

MmePerdu

Do you have an idea of how you'd like to spend your time in the area? Without a car your options are limited, unless it's walking you have in mind. Then your options are virtually unlimited.

jcifuentes

We want to have quite a relaxing time. Take some low intensity walks, enjoy some tea rooms, and possibly visit Bath to do some sightseeing.

I thought we could get an Express bus from Heathrow to Bath rather than going into Paddinton just to leave London for the Cotswolds. Any thoughts? How would we get from Bath to the villages?

jcifuentes

We want to have quite a relaxing time. Take some low intensity walks, enjoy some tea rooms, and possibly visit Bath to do some sightseeing.

I thought we could get an Express bus from Heathrow to Bath rather than going into Paddinton just to leave London for the Cotswolds. Any thoughts? How would we get from Bath to the villages?

janisj

The Cotswolds are not well served for visiting w/o a car.

Getting to Bath is easy. Getting from Bath to any of the small villages/towns in the Cotswolds isn't. You <i>could</i> take buses from Bath to places like Lacock or Castle Combe or Chippenham which are on the far southern fringe of the Cotswolds. Or you could take the train to Bristol and then another train to Cheltenham

Are you dead set against driving - at least for a couple of days?

jcifuentes

I haven't driven in Britain in at least 40 yrs.and have no intention of driving now. I saw an interesting day tour from Morton-on-Marsh rail station.

We could probably do that and then spend the night and explore on our own the 2nd day. Anyway to get to Moreton-on Marsh from Heathrow or do we need to go into the city and leave from Paddington?

flanneruk

It's tricky to get to Bath and back in a day from the North Cotswolds without a car. From one of the three microtowns with a railway station it's 2-2.5 hrs each way: from anywhere else practically impossible.

However, Bath isn't a good base for getting to pretty Cotswold villages (see transport spider maps at http://www.escapetothecotswolds.org....inghere/south/.) It's a terrific place to get the short railway trip to Bradford on Avon, which would be many people's nomination as the nicest place in the Cotswolds if the Cotswolds boundary wasn't 20 miles away. Bath's few bus connections into the Cotswolds are dullish or involve serial changes.

However, part of being a Cotswold is hilliness: any Cotswold walk over 500 yards is going to involve some uphilling, and might not be everyone's definition of "low-intensity". This Bradford is flat, with lots of canalside strolls.

Unless you're a purist on these things, I'd say getting the bus to Bath, connecting to Bradford-u-A and pottering round for a couple of days meets your brief perfectly.

jcifuentes

Would you say Morton-on-Marsh would be a better base? We could probably find a nice B & B there or in a village near there before returning to London.

MmePerdu

While the area is hilly, as flanneruk says, the walk between Bradford & Bath is as flat and as low intensity a walk as you'll find in the area because it's on the towpath of the Kennet & Avon Canal. It's one of my favorite walks with places I enjoy at each end. You can get a train back to the place you started. There are 2 pubs along the way for refreshments, one on the edge of Bath and another, the Cross Guns at Avoncliff, a mile or so from Bradford. It's an interesting walk, at Avoncliff the canal going over the railroad tracks in an aqueduct.

Here is a description starting in Bradford:
https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/see-a...-walking-route

flanneruk

"Would you say Morton-on-Marsh would be a better base?"

If you want to visit Bath, I'd say it's close to being the daftest base you could think of.

You presumably think there's a reason for choosing the place: what is it?

janisj

You have to make a decision Bath or the Cotswolds. Pretty much that's the choice. There simply are no convenient/practical links. One would think they are a natural match because they are near-ish each other. They aren't (unless one has a car).

Now - Oxford is a different matter. You could visit Oxford and be a short train ride from Moreton in Marsh, a shorter bus ride to Woodstock, etc.

MmePerdu

If Oxford becomes your choice, there's a great walk along the Thames, also on a towpath and a section of the long distance Thames Path, from Oxford to Abingdon, or the reverse. There isn't train service to Abingdon but there are local buses:

http://www.thames-path.org.uk/thames...on_oxford.html

A shorter walk, in the opposite direction upstream from Oxford, is to The Trout Inn, of "Inspector Morse" fame. You could have lunch or dinner there beside the river and if not up to the walk back, it's a short taxi ride back to town.

http://www.trout-inn.co.uk

Both walks can start or finish in the vicinity of Oxford train station.