Day 1

Chipping Campden to Stanton

10.5 miles / 16.8 km

We were blessed with perfect weather on our first day hiking in the very charming Cotswolds.

We left Chipping Campden around 9:15AM passing through this lovely village that serves as the North-South Cotswold Way Gateway. The route ends 100 miles further south from here in historic Bath.

The walk began with a gentle ascent up Dover’s Hill. The climb’s reward is sharing a view overlooking the beautiful English countryside with sheep flocks at the top.

For the next few hours, we enjoyed meandering over green fields past too many sheep to count.

The trail is well marked & hikers simply have to look for the Cotswold Way signs which includes wooden posts with an acorn symbol or small round circle pointing the way.

One nice landmark on the trail is the Broadway Tower which is named after the town closest to it. The tower sits on the second highest point in the Cotswolds & as such, it can be seen from miles around. Its location affords a nice view from the hilltop.

This tower made me think about the Rapunzel fairytale. I could very easily envision Rapunzel on the balcony letting down her golden hair

Around noon we walked into the quaint village Broadway.

From Broadway, we only had 4.5 more miles to reach our final destination for today.

In England, you can walk through many farms & fields. This trail is a public walkway due to right-of-ways that have existed for centuries.

Since livestock needs to be controlled & managed, each time you cross into a new field, you have special gates to unlatch or fences to negotiate.

Along the way, we saw these very unique looking cows called Galloways or “Oreo Cows”.

Around 3:00PM, we reached our final destination of Stanton which is yet another cute English village.