Cotswold Way 5-Day Gentle Tour (Hillwalk Tours)

The Cotswold Way is a long-distance National Trail in south-central England that offers beautiful and generally easy-to-moderate walking, with numerous panoramic views from the Cotswold escarpment. The route passes through a varied, quintessentially English landscape with old woodlands, picturesque villages, wildflower meadows and famous ancient sites. The Cotswold Way runs for 164km (102 miles) and connects the market town of Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire to the city of Bath in Somerset (near Bristol). It became the 16th National Trail in England and Wales in 2007 and, being a relatively new National Trail, the Cotswold Way is very well way-marked. So finding your way is easy. The Cotswolds are a range of rolling hills which rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to the Cotswold Escarpment, above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. For most of its length the route closely follows this ‘Cotswold Edge’, giving wonderful views of the surrounding landscape. On its route the Cotswold Way passes through many picturesque English villages built in golden Cotswold stone and close to a significant number of historic sites spanning millennia. Examples are Hailes Abbey, Sudeley Castle near Winchcombe, the Neolithic burial chamber at Belas Knap and the Roman heritage sites at Bath. In addition, the route also visits a wide variety of natural habitats, such as internationally important wildflower meadows and shaded beech woodlands that can be full of the colour of bluebells and the scent of wild garlic in spring.