Cotswold Way - June 2019

After our via Francigena walk ended in Rome Lisa went to Croatia to send a week with an old friend of hers there.  I flew back to Gatwick then trained to the little town of Chipping Campden  in the central UK where I started my seven day, 165 km walk on the Cotswold Way to Bath.

Overall I would recommend this walk.  Not terribly difficult.  Very pretty.  Good accommodation.

Day 1 - Chipping Campden to Broadway 10 km

Spent last night in the Volunteer Inn (B&B with pub) and they also organizeday the baggage transfer.  I decided to opt for this luxury because I was a little tired after the VF where we did carry our full packs and for the CW I had pretty long stretches each day.  Except today because I was unable to get a room in the village of Stanton which is about 20 km down the road so only walking 10 km to Broadway.  This will make the next day a long one. The upside is that Broadway is a larger village with an assortment of shops and cafes to check out.

The full english!

Market hall in Chipping Campden

Official starting point of Cotswold Way

Fans

Tea and Cake break

My digs in Broadway

Day 2 - Broadway to Cleeve Hill 26 km

Stanton

Just cows

Love these giant elms

Golfers mixing it up with sheep on Cleeve Hill

Day 3 - Cleeve Hill to Birdip 23 km

Day 4 - Birdip to King Stanley's 27 km

Roman Villa excavations

Looking down the very steep cheese rolling competition hill

Tea stop at Painswick

Painswick

Sid and Sue from Alaska

Crossing the canal at Stroud

Dinner at King Stanley's Inn

Day 5 - King Stanley to Wotten-Under-Edge 24km

Started off the day blissfully walking into the variant of the CW and getting myself kms and a couple of hours off route.  Retraced and with help from locals managed to get back on track

Looking back toward Stroud whist lost on the commons

Delish pancake

Add caption

Wet selfie

Wotten-on-Edge

The Swan - highly recommended

Roast beef and yorkies

Day 6 - Wooten-Under-Edge to Tormarton - 24 km

Trail food

Inside the earthen walls of a massive iron age fort

Day 7 - Tormarton to Bath - 24 km

The day after reaching bath I took the train to London where I met up with Lisa for four days of touristy things.

Cheers!

Via Francigena Walk - May 2019

The complete write up for this 420 km walk we did in May 2019 can be viewed at our Wordpress blog:

https://therandoneurds.wordpress.com/

Via Francigena and the Cotswold Way - The Plan

So here is the basic plan outline...

On April 29th Lisa and I will leave Vancouver and fly to Pisa, Italy via Gatwick.  After a couple of days there to recover from jet lag we will train to Lucca and from there begin our approximately 400 km walk to Rome.  We will be following the final stage of the ancient Canterbury to Rome pilgrimage route and have planned for 23 walking days.

This is an established walk but no where near as popular as the Spanish Camino route.

https://www.viefrancigene.org/en/

We have booked ahead some nights in the more touristy places but otherwise will will figure this out on the way. 

Rome can be very busy and we have been there before so planning for only a one night stay there at the end of our walk.  After this Lisa will fly to Croatia where she will meet up with a friend for a week of traveling around.  On May 28th I will fly back to Gatwick then train to Chipping Campden where I will start my seven day walk of the Cotswold Way.

https://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/cotswold-way




We will then meet up in London for four days before heading home on June 9th. 

E-Bike for Lisa

It has been a busy couple of months this past winter.  We returned home from our Ireland/Malta trip and within a few weeks had purchased a new home in Vancouver.  For some time we had been planning to downsize from our family home in the suburbs and move into the city.  The boys have grown into wonderful and independent young men and it was time to change it up for us.  We put our home on the market and sold it quite quickly. Went through dramatic cycle of sorting, Craigslisting, Value Villaging, purging, recycling and packing prior to our actual move date on Feb 1st.

New digs

Another planned change was for Lisa to buy an E-bike.  We were super impressed after our day riding E-bikes in Malta.  Lisa felt this would extend her range and balance things out between us when we ride.

A couple of weeks ago we dropped into the MEC store in Vancouver just to check out their selection and start the process.  As luck would have it there was one E-bike in her size and configuration on sale from last year's stock.  Regular $3300 for $2200.  This was the very Ghost model we felt would be prefer for her riding style and the large size fit her perfectly.  She wanted a hybrid style, flat bar Euro/city frame with rack, fenders and lighting.  Added wheel and seat post locks, a rocking titanium lock and switched out the saddle for a woman's one.

We bought it and picked it up a few days later after MEC went through the set up and check procedure.

So clean and new....

So far we have been on a couple of 20-30 km rides and Lisa is just thrilled with her new ride.

Malta

After our Ireland walk we wanted to add some contrast to our trip so we flew to Malta where we spent the next ten days.   The first bit was spent in the lovely old town of Birgu, on the south side of the Grand Harbour, directly across from the city of Valletta.  Spent our days wandering the streets, visiting museums, cafes and listening to music.

We next rode the bus to the northern end of the island to catch a ferry to the smaller island of Gozo where we spent four nights.  Gozo seemed much quieter than Malta but, just our luck, Gozo was hit by a bit of a 'Medacane' storm so no swimming for a few days and that was something we were really looking forward to.

The last three nights were spent back on Malta at Saint David's Bay before the final pack up and flights home via Dublin.

Some random pics...

Grand Harbour - looking out to sea, Fort Saint Angelo

Our street in Birgu

Part of Grand Harbour

Our digs in Birgu

Afternoon Rose

Ferry to Gozo

National beer

Our digs on Gozo

View from the windon

E-bike tour

Petra, our guide and Lisa

Hiking on Gozo

Travel uke packed for flight home