Discover Shakespeare's Country

Well today I played tourist. Booked a Grayline tour out to Oxford, thru the Cotswold to Stratford-on-Avon and back to London. Was an all day tour. Saw lots of the English Countryside, it really is pretty, rolling hills, rivers, trees and it is all green. In Oxford we visited Christ Church University. Charnae you might recognize some of the pictures as many of the scenes from Harry Potter were filmed here. Thought about you as we went thru the campus.
The Cathedral was beautiful, lots of stained glass. We walked thru Oxford, which has colleges through out the town. We only visited the one. Would be great to go back and explore some of the others. They are all open to the public to visit in the afternoons.
It was a cool town and would have liked to spend more time there, but oh well, on we went from there to have lunch at a Pub in a small village. It was a small typical english pub, I tried the Shepard's pie, which was very good and made with lamb, getting more adventurous in my food selections. Then we drove thru parts of the Cotswold toward Stratford-upon-Avon, we traveled thru many small villages on the way, but didn't get to stop. The scenery was great. The homes are all made out of limestone and many still have thatched roofs. Saw some great cottages, very English with thatched roofs and flowers all out front. We visited Anne Hathaway's Cottage (Shakespeare's wife), was a picturesque, thatched, 12 room cottage, with beautiful gardens. Then on to see Shakespeare's birth home on high street in Stratford-upon-Avon. Interesting and again great gardens, the homes was very interesting, hard to believe people lived in them. We again didn't have much time to explore the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, before getting back on the bus to return to London. I'll have to venture back to both towns at some point to doing some more exploring. Also would like to go visit some of the villages in the Cotswold's. Make sure you check out the slide show for all the great pictures from today.