Gloucestershire is everything people love about rural England.
The county is rich in history, idyllic landscapes, architecture, the list goes on.
Rising within the center of Gloucestershire in the Cotswolds, limestone hills of incomparable natural beauty, sheltering gorgeous towns and villages, all built with a yellowy stone that resembles nothing else.
Gloucester may be a fitting county city with a shocking cathedral and now bursting into life after its historic quays were regenerated, while the spa town of Cheltenham brims with Georgian splendor.
In Gloucestershire, you’ll trace the source of the Thames or plot a route through the traditional and fantasy-like Forest of Dean.
Gloucester
On the Severn, and between the Cotswolds and therefore the Forest of Dean, Gloucester has rocketed to people’s attention within the previous couple of years as a dynamic cultural center.
This has come hand-in-hand with the regeneration of the old shipping Quays, where nightspots and restaurants abound.
There’s riveting history in Gloucester too because the cathedral makes clear.
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Constructed piecemeal between the 12th and 15th centuries it melds Norman and Gothic.
A massive pane of medieval glass survives within the Great East Window, while there’s a shrine to King Edward II who was murdered nearby, as we’ll examine later.
On a special note, the maiden flight of the world’s first jet aircraft happened just outside Gloucester at Brockworth.
And to commemorate this there’s the Jet Age Museum, recounting the earliest years of jet-powered flight.
Cheltenham
Right on the western fringe of the Cotswolds, Cheltenham has been a classy playground for the rich for quite 200 years.
There are luxurious shopping and dining, in one among the foremost regal backdrops you’ll imagine.
The springs in Cheltenham were discovered in 1716, but it had been at the turn of the subsequent century that the resort really took shape.
During the Regency period, the spas were developed and therefore the elegant Montpellier district got its palatial townhouses.
You can not come for hydrotherapy or require the spa’s waters, but much of the stately infrastructure remains here, just like the Pittville pump house and therefore the leafy Pittville Park.
Cotswolds
This large Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty rolls out over a huge tract of the Gloucestershire countryside.
With bucolic farmland and adorable towns made up of the local mellow limestone, the Cotswolds tally with most people’s image of the English countryside at its most beautiful.
The region has hills that rise to quite 300 meters, and culminates at the Cotswold edge up the west, a dramatic escarpment over the Severn Valley.
If you’re feeling ambitious you’ll hike the Cotswold Way, a 100-mile National Trail that traces the escarpment within the west.
Days are going to be spent wandering through breathtaking countryside and within the evenings you’ll pamper yourself at cozy inns and bed & breakfasts.
Forest of Dean
Up against the border with Wales within the west of Gloucestershire is 11,000 hectares of ancient woodland, one among the last remaining expanses of this type of wilderness within the country.
The Forest of Dean has been reserved as a royal hunting ground since before the Norman Conquest, which is partly why it’s remained mostly untouched for therefore long.
What you rise up to during this region depends on your idea of adventure; that would be hiking or long-distance hikes, or finding traces of the forgotten mining activity within the forest, or discovering historic sites like Tintern Abbey, just on the Welsh bank of the River Wye.