Cotswolds, Bath, London

This post follows up the last two with the final 3 days of my bike vacation with Prudhvi. Admittedly it's coming almost a week after I returned home, but in my defense I haven't even unpacked all my Ortlieb bags, so technically the trip isn't over yet.

Cheltenham to Tetbury

After spending 2 days in the Lake District, we skipped across to the south using a combo of 4 trains and an encyclopedia of train tickets*. We ended up at Cheltenham, where we took English breakfast for lunch and then pointed our bikes up the massive hill that would let us enter the Cotswolds.

The day became a bit of an adventure, as a looming and thunderous dark cloud stalked us across the hills and valleys. Eventually, it caught up.

*why so many train tickets? well it's a ticket, a seat reservation, bike spot on the person, bike spot on the bike, and receipt, for every leg. And each train ride is split in multiple legs because of ticket splitting in the UK. in short, it can be cheaper to book multiple segments of a ride on different tickets even if they all map to the same train.

We didn't ride a great distance, but the late start, unforgiving weather, and steep terrain made it a challenge. I barely pulled out my camera even though the scenery was quite picturesque. We were just glad to arrive at Tetbury. For dinner we both ordered the same thing: fish and chips!

Tetbury to Bath

This would be our second day in the Cotswolds park... ahem, sorry, I mean the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. I tried to make up for the lack of filming the previous day by taking a few more clips. Thankfully the storms cleared out and we had a phenomenal day riding into Bath, mostly downhill thanks to all the climbing the previous day.

Along the way we rode through Castle Combe, which claims to be the prettiest village in England. I haven't visited every village so I can't dispute the claim. It also doesn't have a castle, but I can at least declare it was a perfect stop for our daily bag of crisps.

London Paddington to Kingston

To return our rental bikes, we had to make our way to Alpkit, in Kingston-upon-Thames. We experienced a little taste of London city bike riding by routing our way from Paddington train station. The conclusion: I come home to Amsterdam with refreshed sense of appreciation. I miss the Asian food though!