With some degree of sadness that it was our last morning in the Cotswolds and our last day together, Julia, my mom, and I packed up our belongings, tidied up the thatched cottage that had been our temporary home, and set off to see more of the English countryside before heading to the airport to catch an early flight the next morning.  We had a bit of business to take care of before we could start the sightseeing.  My camera card was almost full, and I felt paranoid about deleting the photos, even though they were already uploaded to my laptop, before I got home and could back them up properly.  The photos felt like my most valuable souvenirs, and I wasn’t prepared to lose them in case something happened to either my laptop or the memory card while traveling.  So, we stopped into Cirencester, one of the towns we visited on our first day, to buy a new camera card and some breakfast.

I was able to buy a couple of camera cards at a small shop, and we purchased some bread and raspberries to go with the butter we brought from the cottage fridge.

We ate a small breakfast picnic in the car as we went along.  The baguette I got was particularly good, and Julia buttered it for me while I was off taking pictures.  She really was such an attentive friend and guide.

Before visiting Winchester and then Jane Austen’s home at Chawton, Julia drove us to Minchinhampton so I could take pictures of the horses and cows grazing on the commons.  As you drive into Minchinhampton, you pass through a large open gate that encloses a park area that includes buildings, roads, houses, and a golf course, among other things.  It is also an “open range” for grazing cattle.  Right away, I was so excited to see the beautiful cows lying in the grass and lumbering around.  After taking a few shaky pictures through the window, I asked Julia to park so I could get out of the car and closer to the cows to take better photos.  She slowed down, told me to hop out, and said she would circle back to pick me up.

As I got out of the car and closed the door, Julia called out to me, “Be careful.  They are cows.”

I wasn’t very intimidated about walking towards the cows, but that made me pause and look around.  Is this safe?  Surely they only graze docile cows in the common area.  I tentatively approached the group and noticed a pair of golfers walking just a few feet from a cow that was lying on the green.  They seemed unconcerned, so I decided it was probably okay as long as I didn’t antagonize the cows, which I wasn’t planning on doing anyway.  Having been yelled at by golfers when I was a kid, I know some can be very serious mid-game, so I asked if it was okay that I was on the course taking photos.  They assured me I wasn’t impacting their game, and I continued towards the cows.

The only thing I could’ve wished for was stronger sunlight.  Otherwise, the cows were perfect, I had a fantastic backdrop, and the entire experience was thoroughly enjoyable.  As I’m typing this, I realize how easy I am to please.  Don’t take me to the top tourist attraction.  Just take me to a small village with a hard-to-pronounce name, and cows that mingle freely on a golf course, and I’m content.

As little as the golfers were concerned with the cows, the cows were even less concerned with them.  They left cow pies on the green, and one started chewing on the yellow flag that marks the hole.  It was pretty comical to watch, actually.  I wondered how many cows get nailed with incoming golf balls and how many golfers get irritated when a cow blocks their shot.

Once I had taken a few hundred photos of cows, Julia drove us to Winchester.  We had a bit of time to waste until our afternoon appointment to tour Jane Austen’s house in Chawton.  Winchester is the closest city, and is where Jane spent her final weeks, died, and was buried in the cathedral.

The city was bustling, and the main street was crowded with people and market stalls.  We quickly learned that the side streets were mostly empty, so we opted to travel through the city on the quieter routes.  I loved this little street…

As you can see, we pretty much had it to ourselves.

It costs £14/person to tour the cathedral, so we opted to just walk around it.  The primary reason we wanted to go inside was to visit Jane Austen’s grave in the north nave of the cathedral. We were going to tour her house in Chawton that afternoon, and we preferred to focus on where she lived rather than where her body rests.

I actually love milling around without a real purpose.  I find that often, we stumble across something just as interesting as the main attractions of a place.

As we were walking around the back side of the cathedral, we came across an area of sunken ground with unearthed stone coffins and colored stones arranged in a pattern.  These are the remains of Nunnaminster/St Mary’s Abbey, a late Saxon royal monastery.  A plaque explained what we were looking at, and it was fascinating!  What an interesting nugget of history we were able to see and learn about in our meanderings.  If you’re interested in the history, you can read more HERE.

From Winchester, we headed a short way to Chawton, Hampshire, to visit the home where Jane Austen spent the last eight years of her life and wrote all six of her novels…

PS – Cow paintings are incoming.

If you want to catch up on my travels through England and Italy, you can read previous posts of the adventure here…

Arrival & Burford | “gateway to the Cotswolds”

Bibury, Barnsley, & The Pig

Cirencester, Seasalt Cornwall, and Bourton-on-the-Water