What’s better to start the day than with a full English breakfast in a mansion? We were the first ones in the luxurious dining room for breakfast and the service was excellent! I have been on multiple trips and stayed multiple times at palaces, castles, and mansion but I never once been on a trip during my birthday month – October. Being an October baby sucks!!! Starting with elementary school, the cut-off date to attend school is September which means if you are born after September, you’ll need to wait for the next school year to start school. Then, once you attend school in September, it’s too soon to make much friends by October to celebrate your birthday with (well my family doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary to celebrate my birthday though). And the worst was during college time, my birthday always aligned with midterms so who has the time for a birthday celebration? Lastly, now that I am working and able to afford trips but with limited vacation days, there’s no holiday during the month of October to save a vacation day. Also, it is hard to find a good weather destination warm enough to go on vacation! See the struggle? I was thankful that we made this trip to celebrate our birthdays – first time ever!
It was so quiet by ourselves in this dining room that whenever someone walked by, we could hear the woods on the floor squeaking!
There was a small buffet spread on that cart and table with pastries, fruits, cereals, and juices.
In addition, there’s a hot traditional breakfast menu from local ingredients that you can order from, included in our room rate. We waited for Sokunna and Brian to show up but after 10 minutes or so, no sign of them! I messaged them but no answer…I walked up to their room and knocked on their door, still no one answer! We decided to order our hot breakfast:
I picked the scrambled egg with sausage, mushrooms, and beans:
Jason ordered poached eggs and local farm raised salmon:
The two finally replied that they just wake up by my knock, I guess the red-eye flight has worn them out that they slept over 12 hours LOL! They rushed to get ready and joined us for breakfast before our day of exploring the other towns and villages of Cotswolds. Crazy how narrow the street is already and the way they parked!
In addition for car traffic, there’s horse traffic!
Aww look at those cute sheep!
The first town was Chipping Campden, just like the medieval towns we visited yesterday, it is all yellow stone houses. Narrow street, I would be scared to drive here!
The sun peaked out a bit and it lit up the yellow house to be even more golden colored! Look at those two models on the back haha!
An old-style marketplace!
Peaking out from the marketplace to the street hehe:
Photobombed by Brian!
I don’t golf sorry 😛
Woah even the mail man’s bag and cart are red!
Chipping Campden, it’s my favorite village/town in the Cotswolds!
What a cute window haha!
This house has two dog statues in front, I like how the vines wrapped around the house and some flowers were blooming!
Chipping Campden is very photogenic so I recommend to allocate more time in this cute town!
Their bus station:
Chipping Campden is also famous for the thatched roof cottage, we saw them in the postcard so we asked the clert on where they are located, she pointed us to Sheep Street. There’s one:
We walked to the very end of Sheep Street and saw another bigger thatched roof cottage!
We couldn’t find the last one in the postcard so we walked back to get our car to St James’ Church. There will be a wedding in the afternoon so the lady was decorating the entrance.
I really like the way that the trees lined up to the entrance of the church.
Inside the church:
We had some quick photos and left since people we decorating the church for the wedding. We walked out and explore its ground a bit.
The grasses were so bright-green!
Next stop was Broadway Tower and the GPS lead us to Sheep Street again and once it turned, we saw the cottage in the postcard!
We arrived at Broadway Tower where it charges for parking…but you can get a credit toward the admission ticket to go up the tower. We went in the gift shop to purchase the admission tickets (£5.00 per person) and get the credit for parking.
The cutest chairs ever LOL!
When we were there, a group of motorcyclists or mountain bikers were there, seemed like they are having a tour.
It was super windy when we walked up the hill to where the tower located. Broadway Tower is Cotswolds’ highest castle and was a nuclear bunker during the Cold War.
It also offered the best views of the towns and villages beneath it.
Can you see the deers down there?
The exhibitions about the history of the tower:
After the tower, we wanted to see something different than the yellow stone medieval towns so we decided to go to Gloucester to check out its beautiful Cathedral and have lunch at So Thai. So Thai is tucked inside an alleyway and housed in a heated tent. It offered a 2-course lunch menu for only £9.95. I chose the shrimp rolls as the appetizer which were crunchy and fresh.
For my main, I picked the Pad Kee Mao (Drunken Noodle) of course! It was a good portion, it has the authentic Pad Kee Mao taste, good quality beef but it was a little too oily.
Jason ordered the beef fried rice, it was good, we missed rice!
After our late lunch, we walked to the cathedral by Google Map…
It led us to the main shopping street in Gloucester. After seeing many yellow stone houses, now something different – red brick 😀
The entrance was closed due to construction so we had to walk around to another street.
The construction going on….
The cathedral inside is Gothic style and very nice!
The white fan-like arches are very beautiful, very different than other cathedrals that I have seen! The patterns, the symmetry, and the fan-shaped are incredible!
I enjoyed looking at them so much!
We walked out to the courtyard and have some photos of the exterior without construction.
The architectures were impressive!
A red door inside the cathedral! We didn’t explore it all but had to leave since there was an event going on. It was different than what we have seen in the past two days so was glad for a change.
Our plan for the afternoon….a photo session in the beautiful Ellenborough Park as a birthday gift to myself 🙂 Can’t waste the money we spent to stay in this wonderful mansion without having great photos for memories right? I had Jason to pack his suit for the trip that it couldn’t fit into the carry-on luggage so we paid extra for check-in bag (Norwegian is a low-cost airline that charges everything but at least they give a free 10 kg/22 lbs carry-on). We took turns to photograph and we provided a crash course on portrait photography to Brian and Sokunna, here are the results 😀 The couple shots were from either Brian or Sokunna and the individual shots were from Jason!
After our fun mini photo session, Sokunna wasn’t feeling well so we stayed in the hotel for our dinner. The expensive duck wasn’t that great for the price…
Jason ordered a fish (forgot what kind of fish) and then the waiter came with Jason’s dish and said that kind of fish ran out so they substituted to another kind of fish fillet. It was the first time we experienced when a restaurant ran out of an ingredient that they didn’t inform the customer so the customer can pick another dish from the menu, instead, they made the substitution without informing. We were shocked as this is a fine-dining restaurant too! The fish wasn’t bad but the portion was not filling at all!
Love the dress you are wearing, so pretty!
Thank you 😀
Wow. Absolutely stunning pictures!
Thanks Dario!