Wednesday 15 June - Bourton-on-the-Water and Stow-on-the-Wold

Where's Bertie? He's in a car park in Stow-on-the-Wold. We paid £5.30 to park here during the day, but it's free overnight (and, kindly, the machine has credited us with the 21 minutes that today's payment took us into the free period, and added it onto tomorrow's departure time).
Weather: Gloriously sunny and hot.

I feel like we've had an unusually successful day of touristing today, as a result of which I've taken a lot of photos. How am I going to be concise? (I ask like it's something I regularly achieve!)

I'm sure you'll not be surprised to know that the day started with runs. For knee protection purposes, Mick stuck to even surfaces today, whereas I had plotted myself a route taking in parts of the Diamond and Monarch's Ways, as well as a couple of other local paths. It turned out to be a bit of an involved route, crossing field after field, but it was all lovely (except maybe the three cattle fields, and particularly the one where sucklers and calves were all standing right in front of the exit stile) and, even where the undergrowth was high and the path hemmed in, nettles were curiously absent.

Snaps from the run. The village was Clapton-on-the-Hill.

Showers, coffee and crossword, a bit of housework, and 1pm was upon us, which felt like the latest time we could reasonably stay at the Football Club without paying for another night. So, we left and drove the 5 miles along the road to Stow-on-the-Wold.

Lunch was our first priority on arrival (not entirely true; first we faffed around finding the best available spot in the sloping car park), which was followed swiftly by our first walk around.

Without the waterway running through it, and being more towny, it's not as visually attractive a place as Bourton, although by the number of coaches and tour groups, it's just as popular a tourist destination.

Look at all the different levels in that roof line! Such character and individuality in the buildings. The price tags in the estate agents are, accordingly, eyewatering.

Our first walk around didn't reveal a great deal of interest aside from admiring a vast array of pretty and interesting buildings. However, Mick had seen a sign as we left the car park suggesting five points of interest worth visiting, so we returned to check out what it was we should see. Only two points seemed worth a look: the well, and the 'Tolkeinesque' door of the church.

The well? Well! This was Mick's opinion on 'was it worth the walk all the way down here?':

In the field opposite is evidence of an Iron Age fort, although very little of it is visible with the greenery blocking the view at this time of year.

What both of these Points of Interest lacked, that could have transformed our visit, was information signs. Had we been in most European countries, there would have been an information sign or two telling us something of the history of both features (and doing so in multiple languages; based on our observations, Dutch and French would be appreciated hereabouts).

The church door itself would have been relatively unremarkable, if it hadn't been for the two huge yew trees acting as sentries:

I can see why the church yard was full of tour groups photographing this

Unlike the tour groups, we also went into the church where they had provided multilingual (but not overly informative) information sheets, as well as signs interpreting most of the stained glass window scenes.

Pretty street immediately outside of the churchyard

After all the bustle earlier, the streets were relatively deserted by the time we made our way back to Bertie, and my stomach was suggesting that teatime was almost upon us.