Originally Posted by janisj (Post 17605754)

Great trip and trip report. You did hit some of the real high points. You are right about Bourton-on-the-Water - sort of a difficult place to visit because of all the day trippers - but a great place to stay because one is there in the early mornings and evenings before and after the day tripper invasion.

Here is a passage from one of my old trip reports about a group of six I took to London and the Cotswolds, and the affect of the water mill at Lower Slaughter on one lady:

Our car took off for Lower Slaughter. This is just a lovely wee village -- pretty houses, small river, church and a water mill converted to a shop/museum/gallery. We parked across from the church and just wandered around for about an hour. The main site is the Mill - to get there you walk down a pedestrian roadway along the river. Several of the houses along the walk had baskets out on their fence posts or front porch w/ honesty boxes. One was selling fudge, one bunches of lavender, one snapshots of the village.

We came around a bend in the walk and got the first glimpse of the mill and one of the girls got really emotional. Not just tearing up, but really sobbing. Her friend and I were caught up short and tried to console her - but they were tears of utter joy!. Background: this woman had learned about the Cotswolds and fallen in love w/ the "concept" years and years ago when she was a young girl - but never thought she'd actually ever see them in person. Then she got the chance to come on this trip. And THEN - in late Feb her husband passed away! She wavered about coming on the trip - but after a few weeks decided she should. And this place at this time and this perfect view of a mill in a beautiful village in 'her' Cotswolds was sort of the culmination of everything. She was just swept away w/ the emotions of it