We had one free day on our trip and last time out, we spent that day doing the stuff my wife enjoys like antiquing and flea markets with a bit of sightseeing for me thrown in. Given she still has a sore ankle from last year’s surgery, we looked for something that would be fun but not require as much walking. We decided on a day trip to the Cotswolds, historic country villages about 100 miles from central London.

I checked a lot of tour packages offered through Viator (because there was an elevated offer through Rakuten to earn 14x Bilt points on the booking) and decided on a tour offered through GoTours UK that leaves from South Kensington in a 16 passenger van and visits four different spots in the Cotswolds. The tour was around $120 per person and that included transportation and narration from the driver. Of course, there are cheaper ways to cobble this together through trains and buses or you could rent a car and drive yourself but the narrow country roads and lack of parking in some of the villages would make that difficult.

The tour met at a coffee place called Urban Baristas in South Kensington at 8:15am. We could have taken the tube there but decided on an Uber since it was early Sunday morning and the traffic was light. They had two different 16 passenger Mercedes vans doing the tour that day and I think we got on the best one as our driver made much better time getting out to the first stop.

The first stop was at Burford, known as the gateway to the Cotswolds. There’s a main high street there with shops and cafes and a nice old church with a very old graveyard. We stopped for about 45 minutes which was just enough time to get up and down the main street.

Next up we stopped at Bibury, which has Arlington Row, the postcard shot you often see of the Cotswolds. We didn’t walk up the hill into the main part of the village, but we walked along the river and visited the trout farm there. This was a quick half-hour stop.

Our third and longest stop was in Bourton-on-the-Water, where we were encouraged to have lunch. We stopped at a pub and had an OK lunch, nothing amazing. I had the Sunday roast chicken and my wife had fish and chips. We did have some good ice cream afterwards. We had about 90 minutes here at this picturesque but busy village.

The final stop was Stow-on-the-Wold which had things for both of us, antiques for her and a historic pub and church for me. The pub was part of the oldest inn in England, dating back over 1000 years. The church had a doorway that inspired Tolkien (allegedly). We had about 45 minutes here which was plenty of time to see this small village and its sights.

The ride back to London took about two hours. They dropped us back off near the coffee shop and we took a taxi back to the hotel as my wife’s ankle didn’t want to handle the stairs at any tube station by that point.

The van they used was very comfortable with overhead air vents, USB charging points and overhead luggage racks for any large purchases along the way. The driver was knowledgeable and funny, but also knew when to just keep quiet on the way back to London so people could nap or read. He was great at pointing out where we should shop and/or eat in each village plus where the main tourist sights were so that we didn’t have to hunt around in our limited time.

I recommend this tour if you would like to take a day out in the country. As you can see, we had pretty good weather for early March. These villages get very crowded in the summer so keep that in mind if you are visiting that time of year.

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