We were there in November and there were few tourists.

Tourists come and go. All the t-shirts/tea caddies are permanent.

I'm not saying B-o-t-W is a bad place. It is very popular and 90% of visitors to the cotswolds will visit it. I've been to or through it countless times. More than a 100X easily. It has the Model Village, bridges, perfumery, birds, car museum, etc. More 'tourist sites' than 'village sites'. That is what I meant.

Nothing 'wrong' w/ it - there are simply better places to stay IME/IMO

Bourton-On-The-Water is really pretty, but it gets absolutely packed at all times of the year, and the shops and eateries tend to be very touristy. I would favour staying somewhere a bit less manic, e.g. Burford, which is not too far from Bourton if you want to visit for the day. Burford is easily accessible by road, being just off the main Oxford-Cheltenham A40 road.

Regards
Vicky
http://postcards-pfte.blogspot.co.uk/
Celebrating the Great British Coastline

I was wondering how long it would take for the Bourton filled with visitors thing to come up. When we were in Broadway we drove over to Bourton on a weekend day. The place was MOBBED (I want to say this was in September but am not certain) and I remember thinking that the place is very pretty, etc., and I could well understand why so many people were there. I can understand how this could be very off-putting.

<<but it gets absolutely packed at all times of the year, and the shops and eateries tend to be very touristy>>

We did not find that at all. As mentioned we were there in the early Spring. It was far from crowded and I do not know what makes a shop touristy unless it is the type selling tee shirts and souveniers. We did not see much in the way of those - I am not sure if we saw any- and there were some very nice shops for antique shopping where we actually found and bought some good buys compared to US prices for similar - I collect Jasperware, know the marks, and I was like a kid in a candy shop. Restaurants were not crowded either and it was a fine base for a quick drive to Upper and Lower Slaughter both of which were joys.

I suspect on the day we were there it was crowded because it WAS a weekend.

It really doesn't get all that crowded <i>year round</i>. But summer and weekends spring and fall -- the coach and car parks can be full to bursting by noon.

Towns that aren't geared so much to the tourist trade will generally have better prices for antiques and collectibles.

You have always been a help janisj and I followed much of your advice on that trip. I tend to haunt antique shops when I travel but only visited others in London and York, so it is hard to compare prices but in collecting it is finding the pieces that you are looking for and sometimes that can be difficult. On this trip I was lucky to find several pieces from the time period and condition that I wanted in B ot W. One is a cobalt blue teapot from the mid 19th century in absolutely pristine condition. The price was well less than half of what it would have cost in the US IF I could find one - it is the pride of my collection.

I don't make a habit of visiting BOTW, but probably pass through it more often than anyone else on this thread.

I honestly don't think I've ever seen a T shirt on sale there.

It's completely absurd to claim "it gets absolutely packed at all times of the year". Like the Cotswolds' other half dozen honeypots, it gets full (and has fuller car parks than Burford) from 1100 to 1600 weekends and bank holidays from Mothering Sunday till the clocks go back, and is pretty empty the other 80% of the year.

The area's "realler" towns - Burford, Chipping C, Stow, Winchcombe and Tetbury - are far less seasonal. As local market towns in an area with a rapidly growing population, their peaks are more widely spread. Parking can be a pain in Burford as early as 0900 in the depths of midwinter, even on Fridays

The better antique centres (often in odd complexes off the main drag) are, as janisj says, in towns few foreign visitors bother with. Chipping Norton is especially good.

Incidentally, the best English tea shop in Burford, Huffkins, now supplies cakes and biscuits to the UK Cabinet and to both Houses of Parliament (and charges less than half the central London ripoff joints). Match that, Ritz, Fortnum's and Horrids!

flanner - if my memory has not failed me, don't you live in the vicinity of Winchcombe?

Regarding BOTW, IMO ( and one may well dismiss it as worthless) it's a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live or stay there. I prefer Burford ( and as flanner has mentioned, Huffkins is excellent), Winchcombe and Chipping.

"don't you live in the vicinity of Winchcombe"

No. The Cotswolds have a Great Divide.

On the Gloucestershire side, house prices double, IQs halve, they always have a red-faced Tory foxhunter as their MP and everyone goes back to their Notting Hill mansion on the 0710 Monday train from Kemble. IQs may be low, but money making smarts aren't.

On the Oxfordshire side, we get the 0730 from Charlbury (much cheaper) every day to bore our London colleagues or clients about what a terrific area we live in and why it's in the British Constitution that we have to be represented by a One Nation (Tory, leftish, bloody bright and posh) Cabinet minister.

Winchcombe's definitely Gloucestershire. They want to hobnob with the chaps at Sudely Castle - and are too polite to ask us why, if we're so smart, we're so unrich. We look down on the vulgarians of Blenheim. And wonder the same thing.

Well then, my memory has indeed failed me once again. for some reason I thought you lived in Winchcombe itself. That would be Winchcombe's loss. Glad I asked though because that was an interesting post.