London Trip Days 4-6
We ventured out of the city of London, and headed out into the English countryside to see more of beautiful and historical England!
If you are planning a trip to London, and you haven’t thought about venturing out of the big city, you are missing out! This is one of the highlights of our trip. It was like escaping our busy vacation to a more relaxing one!
On our way out to the Cotswolds, we stopped in Oxford to see the beautiful historic Oxford University. This university is made up of 39 colleges and is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. The architecture is definitely worth the stop!
We booked this 3 hour tour through Get Your Guide. It took us inside some of the colleges, including the beautiful Divinity School where scenes from Harry Potter were filmed.
This tour did feel a little long. They do offer a shorter tour which is 2 hours and doesn’t include Christ Church. This is a really stunning building, but I do feel we could have gone to see it on our own. However, the nice thing about the tour is that all the tickets to go inside everything are pre-purchased and you don’t have to worry about it. This is the main reason we opted to do the tour.
Here are some logistics to consider when heading out of London:
- We rented a car at this Avis location near the airport. We got an Uber from our hotel in London to this Avis location. We picked this location because it was right next to our hotel we would be staying at before our flight. It made for a super easy return on a Sunday!
- My husband drove, and yes, it was a bit nerve-racking driving on a totally different side of the road, but it wasn’t that bad! I was pretty proud of him!
- We drove to this car park on the outskirts of Oxford and took a bus from there into the town. Parking is very limited, so this is encouraged.
Isn’t the architecture stunning? How cool would it be to attend college in a city like this!
Before heading out, we stopped at The Bear. It is Oxford’s oldest pub, and you could definitely tell how old it was once you stepped inside! We had a good lunch, and we finally tried some Sticky Toffee Pudding!! Check out my video of this part of our trip HERE!
After lunch, we headed back to a bus stop to take us back to our car park and headed to Stow on the Wold! These names crack me up! Little did I know how much I would LOVE this next stop!!!!!! Stow stole my heart!
I mean look at our Airbnb!! It was called The Little House, and it was actually located on the main road in Stow behind the owner’s house. It was definitely a different experience. We had to walk through the owner’s house, but it really wasn’t a big deal at all! Cat and John, the owners, were such wonderful hosts!!
Cat had the little house fully stocked with fresh bread, butter, jam, and juice! She had relaxing classical music playing upstairs, and it smelled so wonderful too! She just thought of everything!!
We stayed here two nights. Stow on the Wold is such a charming town. The first night we walked to eat outside in the beautiful weather at The Sheep. Then we headed to our little house to rest for the next day! The link for our Airbnb is at the bottom!!
The next morning we woke up and headed across the street to explore the town square. First up, we went to St. Edward’s church to see the famous yew tree door from Lord of the Rings.
We walked to town square and went into some of the shops. They have tea rooms too! I could have stayed here longer for sure.
The cheese shop had so much I wanted to buy!
Next, up we took the bus to the town of Burton on the Water just 10 minutes away. Burton on the Water is beautiful, however, it was really packed with tourists EVERYWHERE! Maybe it was because it was a Saturday. But it really was a contrast to quiet Stow.
This town has a beautiful little river that runs through it with stone bridges that run across it.
There are tons of shops, and there is no shortage of ice cream here!
I was excited to stop at Fresh for Lunch!! We shared a bacon and cheese baguette by the river. It was delicious!
Then I had to get an ice cream before we headed back to Stow. It was in this moment where I just felt so grateful for this trip!
Later that evening, we headed to some of the old inns in Stow to have drinks. The first stop was The Old Stocks Inn. I got this delicious drink, which I came home and recreated here.
It really is such a romantic little town! I highly recommend it, as if I haven’t said that already!! We ate dinner at The King’s Arms. It was a very good ending to a very good day! See our video of the whole day in the Cotswolds HERE
The next morning, we packed up and headed north to Warwick, England. We went to mass and then headed to my favorite castle of the whole trip, Warwick Castle!
I think it was my favorite because we really got to go inside and really explore unlike Buckingham Palace where you are limited on photography, etc. We went up in the tall towers and saw stunning views and down in the dark dungeon. It was really cool. It’s a great castle for kids to visit and was the perfect thing for us to do on a Sunday!
The music they played gave this place a whole vibe as well. At one point, we grabbed lunch and a beer, and sat on the lawn to relax. So fun! Check out our video of our day in Warwick HERE.
We headed back into London to return the rental car and to our hotel by the airport for the night! This was such an amazing trip!
- If you didn’t see our first 3 days in London, go here.
- See all our my videos here.
- Our beautiful Airbnb in Stow on the Wold can be found here!
