The Cotswold Way

I'm missing my walking books already!

When do you start thinking about your next holiday?

(a) a week before you book it?
(b) the day you come home from your current holiday?
(c) half way through your current holiday on a windy ridge in the driving rain when you still have 5 miles to walk to reach your next overnight stop? You are covered in mud, yet you are already planning to get cold, tired and wet all over again on a different windy ridge as soon as you possibly can.

Surely not (c)?

I have to say, my week on the Cotswold Way was probably a (b) in that I think we planned it the day we got home after completing our Ridgeway walk.  We weren't cold, we weren't wet and we had at least taken off the walking boots.  

Two years pass and picture the scene: Junior Daughter was about to set off on a school trip, Senior Daughter was still away at Uni, and Mr Pitt and I were sitting in the Noel Arms in Chipping Campden just opposite the start of the Cotswold Way, admiring the deep polished chestnut brown of our pint and a half of Butty Bach, contemplating the 100 miles of walking ahead of us.

"At what point do we give up?" I enquire as I take my first sip.
"This one seems reasonable," Mr Pitt quips.
"Okay."

Mr Pitt is sporting an injury, after running the Bath Half Marathon a few weeks ago and so our long planned walking holiday along the Cotswold Way is in jeopardy before we've even started.  Halfway down the beer we agree that we are at least going to try our first stage - a warm-up of 6 miles talking us from Chipping Campden to Broadway.

We've learnt from our experience of walking the Ridgeway, two years ago,  and have both selected the minimum of clothing to see us through our six and a half days of walking plus an evening and a day in Bath at the end of our walk.  Everything we need for our adventure fits into two 'day packs'.  We have 500ml of good old Oxfordshire tap water between us, a guidebook and three good legs.  Let's go!

The Cotswold Way
 - The Beginning and the End

Eco tourism
How is this eco-tourism?

According to The International Ecotourism Society, 'Ecotourism is defined as "responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people." (TIES, 1990)'

I'm sure I'm not alone in that when I think of eco-tourism, I think of exotic locations, hikes and treks to admire the flora and fauna in its natural habitat amidst beautiful scenery, awe and wonder at every turn, experiencing the local culture and of course the local food.

But there's no reason why eco-tourism can't actually be found on your own doorstep (or at least on mine - come and see for yourself!)

In order to be an eco-tourist in my own backyard, this was my plan:

1) Support local people by staying in B&B accommodation, particularly looking for B&Bs who themselves support the local area with local food.
2) Sample the local beers.
3) On the trail… take nothing but photographs, kill nothing but time, leave nothing but footprints. (I saw that on a sign at Cooper's Hill).

The makings of a pretty good holiday, I feel - especially plan number 2!

Our itinerary
If you're planning to do the trail yourself the all important thing is the accommodation and we were lucky in that all the accommodation we picked was great.  All are to be recommended.

Day One (pm only): Chipping Campden to Broadway - 6 miles

A gentle start and perfect if you need the morning to travel to Chipping Campden.  We left the pub at around two and were in Broadway by just after four.  Broadway is a fab place to stay overnight with a good choice of Bed and Breakfast accommodation and lots of lovely places to eat.  But, it is advisable to book one of these lovely eateries in advance as even early in the year Broadway was buzzing.  We didn't heed that advice and so we felt like we were traipsing along the High Street from place to place being consistently turned away - no room at the inn.  We did start to wonder whether we were overdoing it on the packing light thing.  Broadway is a smart place, but then we noticed a very well dressed couple one restaurant ahead of us also being turned away.  Phew!

Grey clouds with silver linings and all that, there was an upside to the saga… we ended up at Russel's fish and chip shop which has (posh) cafe style seating and posh fish and chips all served out of stylish bamboo compostable dishes.  I always try to think about the sustainability of the fish I eat and I know that the traditional fish and chip offerings are all in short supply.  Not feeling fully prepared for my fishy experience my mind was a bit of a blank when it came to trying to recall the sustainable fish options and cod always rings alarm bells, though I felt that a restaurant that used compostable serving dishes would likely be mindful of the source of their fish supplies.  Mr Pitt opted for cod and I chose cod cheeks, thinking that if I'm going to eat cod, then I'll go for the less popular part of the fish so as to at least make the most of it.  Cod cheeks are yummy, I can now report and on returning home I checked out the sustainability page of the Russel's Fish and Chip Shop website to find they use local oil, and responsibly sourced cod.  Aside from the food being delicious, with copious but not excessive portions, the service was warm and friendly and I would definitely recommend it.  I hope to be going again!

Cowley House B&B in Broadway

Bed for the night was the wonderful Cowley House.  A warm welcome awaited us, a comfortable bed in a pretty room and a delicious breakfast of local goodies to send us on our way.  Cowley House is right on the trail at the 'bottom' end of the High Street, which makes it an ideal place to set off from next morning.  Other advantages are the fact that there's real ale on offer across the road at the CAMRA award winning Crown and Trumpet pub.  More local ales to sample.

Day Two 18.75 miles (am): Broadway to Hailes - 10 miles  and (pm): Hailes to Cleeve Hill - 8.75

The morning took us through the beautiful villages of Stanton, Stanway and Wood Stanway.  With just over 18 miles to go we were keen not to venture too far off the trail for lunch and so we aimed for a 10 mile morning stint which took us to Hailes Fruit Farm which has a tea room and farm shop.  The tea room provides bags for walkers to put over their muddy boots - we chose to just take ours off and leave them outside!  Inside we had homemade vegetable soup which went down very well and there was an array of homemade cakes on offer.  The coffee and walnut cake was delicious.

The afternoon took us past the ruins of Hailes Abbey, the through Winchcombe and up, up, up to the Belas Knap Long Barrow.  Onwards from here we could see our destination, the beautiful Cleeve Common, so near yet so far.  Between us and Cleeve Common was a lovely wooded valley.  That meant, yes… we had to go all the way down, and all the way back up the other side.

Our bed for the night at Cleeve Hill was to be the Malvern View which lies just below the Cotswold Way.  Best of all, was that you can book to have an evening meal there.  Barry and Leana had emailed us the menu choices and we were looking forward to pea soup with mint oil, followed by roasted shoulder of lamb with seasonal vegetables & baby potatoes and finishing off with self saucing chocolate and peanut butter pudding.  I admit I've had a slight obsession with chocolate fondant puddings since.

Absolutely everything about the Malvern View was classy.  The rooms were tastefully decorated, very comfortable and we had a wonderfully reviving rain shower.  We were supplied with locally made lavender shower gel to relax our tired muscles, so we were fully refreshed when we arrived back in the dining room for our exquisite meal.  Leana is an excellent chef and with the services of a local wine merchant we had an excellent choice of wines to go with our meal.

However, fast or slow your walking pace, I really think you would be missing out if you didn't plan in a visit to the Malvern View!

Day Three 16.25 miles (am): Cleeve Hill to Seven Springs - 8 miles (pm): Seven Springs to Birdlip 8.25 miles

Day three started with a breakfast of porridge, fruits and local honey.  Just what was needed for the climb back up onto the Cotswold Way, followed by the even steeper climb once back on the trail, basically straight up to the highest point of Cleeve Hill itself.  If you look east from here, apparently the next highest point is somewhere in the Urals.   The weather was evil, but strangely, it cleared for a short time while we were on the top of the hill and we had views over Cheltenham and the race course.  I can imagine it gets crowded up here on race day!

View over Cheltenham racecourse

Cleeve Hill - the highest point along the Cotswold Way

This was undoubtedly the hardest day of walking, partly due to the inclement weather and partly because it seemed that for most of the day we were squelching through deep mud along bridleways through Prestbury Hill Reserve and Lineover Wood.

The obvious lunch option was not my favourite choice in that it was the Hungry Horse at Severn Springs - a chain pub on a main road, but we had a warm welcome despite our muddy state.  It was functional and friendly and very close to the trail.  There is little else around for most of the way.

A tempting road sign announced that Birdlip was just three miles away, but we stuck to our route and enjoyed the wonderful views on offer around Leckhampton Hill and Crickley Hill. Well we could see enough to tell that the views would be lovely if the weather were to be a bit lovelier.

Onward to Birdlip and we finished the day with a short walk up the pavement alongside the A 417 in rush hour - just enough to make me feel extremely grateful that I was walking and not sitting in my car queueing at the Air Balloon roundabout!  The path then dips down into a lovely woodland before you meet the hill that takes you up to Birdlip.

The Royal George pub provide a lovely room with very comfortable bed for a modest price together with an extensive menu of good old pub grub.  The buffet breakfast provided lots of healthy options to set us up for our days walking.

The Royal George Hotel, Birdlip

Day Four - 16 miles (am): Birdlip to Edge Common 7 miles  (pm): Edge Common to Middleyard 9 miles

Lovely woodland starts off the day, followed by a steep, steep climb up Cooper's Hill famed for cheese rolling.  The walking was much easier today, and we made good time to the lovely town of Painswick. Our lunch destination was the Edge Inn at Edgemoor a couple of miles beyond Painswick down some grassy meadows into the valley across the brook and up the other side, passing the not quite halfway marker on the way up!

Nearly half way - 47 miles in!

A ploughman's lunch and more local ale at the Edge Inn meant that I picked out this particular stretch of the Cotswold Way between Painswick and The Edge Inn (open 12 noon to 2pm) as one I'd most want to return to in the future for a pub lunch walk with friends.

A half of Uley's Gloucester Old Spot washed down the ploughman's nicely, but in the early part of the afternoon, we were a little confused about the landmarks we were supposed to be seeing according to our trusty guide book.  When Mrs Pitt realised she was holding the map upside down it all started to make sense! (And that was despite turning down the landlord's kind offer of filling her water bottle with another half of Old Spot.)

Accommodation that evening was at Valley Views in Middleyard, where we were welcomed by landlady, Pam White, who has won awards for looking after walkers and we could see why.  We had planned to walk back to King's Stanley to find an evening meal, but the pub had recently stopped serving food on a Tuesday.  However, Pam contacted a local taxi company that whisked us of to The Old Fleece in Woodchester, which had a lovely atmosphere and served well cooked local food.  Just one thing - the portions are very generous and this is the only place I have been unable to finish a meal in a long time.  If I go again - which I hope I do - I think I'd have a main course and then maybe share a pudding if there's still room!

Day Five 14.5 Miles (am): Middleyard to Dursley 8 miles  (pm): Dursley to Wotton-under-Edge 6.5 miles

The Valley Views breakfast was wonderful.  I chose yoghurt with berries and toast with home made jam (and set off feeling virtuous for avoiding another cooked breakfast).

Our morning's walk was to take us to The Old Spot in Dursley up and over some big hills.  The views over the Severn were stunning and we had a clear view of our route for the next few days.

Looking at Cam Long Down

Cam Long Down was a vertigo moment.  With the path going straight up the hill at one end there was a strange feeling of nothingness on either side as I clambered up.  I kept feeling I wanted to turn round and sit down.  A couple of times I could kid myself I was stopping to admire the view, but most of the time I was just clinging to the side of the hill in the hope of not rolling back down like a Double Gloucester Cheese.

Once on top it really did feel like an achievement.  The views all around were well worth lingering for. We met an elderly gentleman who was looking a little weary from the climb.  He told us that he'd got half way back down and realised his dog had stayed on the top of the hill, so he'd had to climb all the way back to the top to get him.

The Old Spot pub is another CAMRA award winner and we could see why. It is the epitome of the English Country pub run by people who really care about what they have on offer.  We were refreshed and revived ready for another big climb out of Dursley and up to the Tyndale Monument.  After the first steep climb up Stinchcombe Hill you come to the golf course.  You can either walk round the golf course or cut straight across it.  Our plan was to go straight across.  We later met some walkers who had chosen to walk around it and the verdict was 'not worth the extra miles'!

We stayed at The Swan in Wotton-under-Edge (tel:01453 843004). Very comfortable and good pub food.

The Swan Hotel

Day Six 14.5 miles (am): Wotton-under-Edge to Hawkesbury Upton 7.5 miles  (pm): Hawkesbury Upton to Tormarton 7 miles

A nice walk along the valley to ease us in to the penultimate day of walking, followed by another steep climb.  Once on top of the hill the path cut off a nice gravel bridle way through some grassy meadows and was a little difficult to follow.  We emerged soaking wet into a woodland and then back onto the gravel bridleway.  The detour it seemed was all so we could get a better look at Nanny Farmer's Bottom.

Nanny Farmer's Bottom

Just off the trail at Hawkesbury Upton is the Beaufort Arms.  You just keep walking on through the village instead of turning right at the green to follow the trail.  There's then a footpath from the pub back to the trail and it is another pub well worth stopping at.

That evening we arrived in the lovely village of Tormarton to stay at The Little Smithy which is a gem of a B&B.

We were entertained in the not to be missed Major's Retreat.  More excellent pub grub and local beers.



Day Seven: Tormarton to Bath 16 miles

The plan was to head to Cold Ashton for lunch - 6.5 miles in to our 16 mile day, but having set off not long after 9.00 am we were in Cold Ashton around 11 and in all my planning I hadn't remembered that the Folly End Farm was slightly off the trail, so we had walked on past and through the village before we realised we'd missed it.  We decided not to turn back, but I slightly regretted that decision two hours and another 6 miles later as there is nowhere else to stop and I don't think I made the most of the last few miles before we arrive at the village of Weston on the way into Bath - because all I could think about was a toilet!  So I'd advise a stop at Folly End Farm so you can fully enjoy the views later.

After a brief stop for a half of Severn Valley cider in Weston we continued on into Bath, but you don't just amble down to the town centre by the quickest route.  There are of course a couple more big hills to climb in case you didn't feel you'd done enough of that already.  So, up Primrose Hill and up Sion Hill, with spectacular views over the city of course, but I think my favourite bit was sitting in the sunshine, enjoying a plate of bread and olives with oil and vinegar and a cold glass of Devon white wine at The Circus Cafe with a feeling of euphoria at having walked 100 glorious miles along the Cotswold Way.

The Cotswold Way in oil and vinegar

The Cotswold Way, the beginning and the end.

Snow Carbon

Can a skiing holiday ever be low carbon?

Skiing and eco-friendly holidays don't really sit naturally together in my mind.  But I was 11 years old when I got the bug for this high adrenalin sport and loved it so much that at 18, I went to work as an au pair near the lovely village of Manigod in the French Alps.

MANIGOD Croix-Fry Merdassier by ARAVISPANORAMA

I then did a French degree in London, but chose to go back to the French Alps for my year in a French university and on finishing my degree, I worked as rep in a ski resort for a season.  As you can see, I was well and truly hooked.

Since then I've been skiing a few times with my family, recently travelling by car (not too high carbon with six of us travelling - as my children take a friend each).

We have always been conscious of trying to keep our holidays environmentally friendly as far as we can.  Some of the ways we do this: we support local businesses, avoid waste as far as possible, avoid all-inclusive places.  You know the kind of thing!

This year, in choosing our skiing holiday, we again tried to find lower carbon options  We were only four rather than six, and so we didn't want to drive, but didn't want to fly either. So for the first time, we travelled by train to our holiday destination.

We found a holiday by train through Snow Carbon travelling with Zenith Holidays to the Hameau des Airelles in Montgenèvre which has recently obtained the EU Ecolabel.

View over the village

Some of the lifts have a choice of chair or cable car, which is great
 because yo can choose which to take according to the weather.

I found Zenith Holidays to be super helpful.  Everything was made very easy and I was really made to feel looked after.  Zenith organised our train travel via Eurostar to Paris and then onwards to Oulx in Italy on the TGV.  Prices were comparable to flying, though no cheaper even though we booked as early as it was possible to book the entire trip. Our Eurostar tickets cost us £70.50 each for the way out and £61 pounds for the way back. It takes aound 2 1/2 hours to Paris Gare du Nord and then you have a short 2 stop train journey on the RER to the Gare du Lyon for onward travel to the French alps. On the Eurostar you can buy a book of 10 metro tickets for around 13 euros. The TGV to Oulx  was £64.48 each return and took around five hours, but we were comfortable and the journey passed very quickly.

We'd decided to take rucksacks as we thought that would be the easiest way to deal with luggage, but in fact a wheeled suitcase or sports bag was what most fellow travellers had!

I'd advise taking plenty of food, snacks and drinks with you for the journey as food is expensive on the train and at the stations.  The Eurostar Lounge both at St Pancras and Paris Gare du Nord are comfortable, so if you have a wait you can generally find somewhere to sit and read.  But the Halle des Grande Lignes at Gare du Lyons only has about eight chairs, so it is not the best place to spend any amount of time.


We were met at the station - actually on the platform by our Zenith rep and then whisked by minibus up to the resort of Montgenèvre, which took around half an hour. All very swift, efficient and welcoming.

Onto the accommodation...

The Hameau des Airelles was lovely.  We opted for a two bedroom apartment which is said to sleep six people, as there's a sofa bed in the lounge. For four it felt spacious.  Six would be fine, but cosy.  But there's no way I could see six people fitting in their ski boots into the ski locker without them getting wet from snow dripping off the skis and other  boots - four was a jigsaw, which we failed on the first time and had to dry out our boots the second morning with a hair dryer - not very eco-friendly, I know!  The problem with the ski lockers is simply that there's no use of the wall of the locker to be able to slot boots onto pegs upside down, which is all it would take.

Your bed linen and towels are provided, so you don't need to lug that with you on the train, which is very helpful. Towels for the spa are provided too, but in good eco-friendly style, they invite you to keep them all week.

When you check in you are given a little cardboard box containing 6 dishwasher tablets.  In the apartment, you will find a teeny-tiny bottle of eco washing up liquid, a dish washing sponge, but no tea-towel. They are giving you a clear message that you will use the super efficient dishwasher provided rather than wasting lots of their precious hot water on washing up!

There's a row of recycling bins across the road from the apartments, and instructions about this in their booklet.  Most packaging is recycled, but they don't take yoghurt pots - that's a French thing that I have never understood and must investigate one day!  Surprisingly, for somewhere professing to be eco-friendly, there's nowhere for food waste.  Obviously if you are going eco, you will not be generating a lot of food waste, but we did have a chicken carcass, banana skins and such like to dispose of.  From my research, I have learnt how important it is to keep organic waste out of landfill. So the fact that there's no separate food waste recycling was disappointing, but again that's a France thing (and yes I'll look into it sometime soon) and not really something within the power of the apartment block, though I did think that it was a shame the residents' waste was not used for heating.  Surely that would have been an option these days?

For skiers, the biggy is of course how easy it is to get to the lifts and get home again.  Well, getting to the lifts was a doddle.  Skis out of the locker, cross the very quiet road onto the side of a ski slope , put your skis on and enjoy a gentle green run down to a choice of two chair lifts.  In the evening, you need to be at the Serre Thibaud chair lift by 4.25 pm and there's an easy blue (or hard red / black if you must) which takes you home.  In April, ski-in ski out places are not always that, but this one was.  However, I will say that the bottom of the run got slushy most days which Mr Pitt and I both found hard work on the legs at the end of the day.  Still, you don't go skiing if you don't enjoy a bit of a challenge and it was always a great feeling to get so close to the door on your skis.

The apartment had a well stocked and designed kitchen, so eating in was a pleasure, particularly because next door to the apartment block was a warm and friendly and very inviting little grocery / delicatessen called the Coccimarket.  In fact, it was so inviting that other than the first night when we found take away pizza, chips and salad from 'La Capitaine' as we'd missed the supermarket, we actually chose to eat in every night.

So what did we do to be eco-friendly, food-wise?

• We took our own reusable shopping bags
• We shopped daily so that we only bought what we needed and didn't waste anything unnecessarily.
• We went for fresh seasonal vegetables and avoided packaged food.  The meat was fresh and local, with an adequate variety for the week.  There were different meats available each evening. 
• We bought some cheese, sauscisson sec and honey from a local producer who had a stall in the foyer of the apartment block on the second evening.
• We brought fresh bread daily from the bakery and toasted what was left in the morning for breakfast.  We saved up the bread crumbs from the chopping board and used them to make some breaded pork escalopes one night and other days we put the bread crumbs on the balcony for the birds - and they cleaned up in no time!
• We used up leftovers, when we had them, the next evening by adding them to what we were eating, or having them as a starter and yes, I confess, I ate chilli for breakfast on the last morning - but you know, I had a long train journey and there was just no point in wasting it.   
• The supermarket was a great help as there was plenty of fresh unpackaged food, and they sold things singly - including eggs! You could also buy home-made jam which you could buy a small quantity of in your own pot.  They did this at the bakery too.
• We made baguette sandwiches for the train journey home which finished up our jar of mustard and we took the remaining lettuce in a bag to eat like crisps on the train.  We kept the paper from our daily purchases of baguette to wrap our sandwiches in for the train.

Any eco-disasters? Yes!

We spotted a lovely looking mountain hut advertising lasagne and paninis, so we went there for lunch one day.  Never again.  The lasagne was only pasta and bechamel sauce and was so awful it was inedible and you can probably imagine how much that pained us to leave food uneaten.  The etiquette at the place was to put stuff into a bin, but we decided to leave the uneaten lasagne on the table, so that they would see that it was inedible.  The waitress had made a face at it when she collected it from the chef, so we were pretty sure they'd get the message, but unfortunately my Italian was not up to an explanation.  The place was lovely but they need to change their lasagne supplier!

So, now for the big question.  Can any skiing holiday be eco-friendly?  All that energy required for the lifts!  I'm sure it can't be.  So all you can do is think about making up for it in other ways as much as you can.

These days the ski-passes are reusable, so don't forget to give yours back at the end of your stay - and get back your 3 euro deposit.

Don't buy skis (yes I did all those years ago when I lived in a ski resort and was using them every day - but they are now languishing in my garage).  As well as the added carbon footprint (and effort) of transporting your skis to the resort, the technology has changed over the years.  Skis get out of date.  It is best to hire and get the latest technology while the skis get good use made of them.  As I was skiing on my hire skis and wondering what it would be like to ski on my old skis I wondered what happened to all those old style skis.  As we left the resort, however, I did find out what had happened to a number of them as I noticed that the fences to the fields were made up of tall, slim old style skis!

Next year, though, I'm thinking about getting even more eco-friendly with my skiing and going entirely for cross country skiing and snow-shoe walking. The only energy used then (other than the embodied energy of the equipment of course) is my own. A great advantage of choosing cross country skiing is that a ski pass for the week cost 43 euros as compared to the 199.50 euros of a downhill ski pass. And if you think that the adrenalin rush won't be the same - just you try it...  I remember it well from my mountain-dwelling days.  You can't beat the feeling of getting to the summit entirely under your own steam! 

Zenith were great.  They explained the train travel and organised to book the Paris to Oulx bit on the first day the tickets went on sale, which is three months prior to the travel date. They got us discounts on ski hire and ski passes as well as providing the taxi to and from the station, and getting in some provisions for the first evening/ morning.  I'm not a package holiday kind of girl, but sometimes it just makes sense.

If I book again, which I quite likely will, I'd be tempted to book the Eurostar tickets actually with Eurostar the first day possible which is 4 months prior to travel.  Our tickets this time were through Rail Europe.  There was no problem at all with them, but we did arrive back at the Eurostar in good time for an earlier train, and there was very much a 'don't give a damn attitude' from the lady at the Eurostar reception when I asked if we could be allowed on the earlier train.  She said there was nothing she could do because it was booked through an agent and we'd have to contact the agent.

I've travelled with Eurostar before when speaking at conferences in Paris and remember once being put on the earlier train even though I'd actually paid less for my ticket then than I did this time.

Oh yes,  next time I'll pack a tea towel too!