A three hour journey from London, we left Friday night, heading towards the luxury Chase Hotel which is right in the heart of the forest. The package I had booked, saw us stuffing our face all weekend as a three course meal was provided each night, as well as a buffet breakfast – delicious food at that. We arrived at around 8pm and after a delicious dinner, we retired for the night, before jumping up, packing up our stuff again and changing rooms thanks to a really loud snorer in the room beside us! Never mind – round two!
The next morning, we hit the road after a delicious breakfast, heading to the beautiful town of Gloucester to visit the famous Gloucester cathedral. This cathedral is huge and so beautiful – it’s up there with Westminster Abbey. We had booked a personal guided tour, which saw us trot along all the filming hotspots where the cast had filmed a lot of the scenes – HP fans can touch base with us one-on-one to get the lowdown here. I fear if we go into the details we’ll lose the few readers our blog attracts! Our guide was sweeter than sweet and allowed us to stop for countless photos. Afterwards we stayed on to retrace our steps, take more photos, and soak up every nook and cranny of this pretty building.
After an hour or so, we hit the road, heading towards Symonds Yat Rock – a massive outlook point for the forest, with a dozen or so walking tracks. After stumbling right into a man proposing to his girlfriend right at the crucial moment, we sheepishly mumbled our congratulations, took a few photos for the happy couple and got on our merry way. Classic timing! Given it was chucking it down, we opted for the one hour track, but both loved it so much that we’ve already made plans to return in summer to take on a track that is a little more challenging. There’s only so much bush you can battle through in sub-zero temperatures, with umbrellas and mud-soaked sneakers!
Our last stop for the day was the International Centre for Birds of Prey and despite the name, this was beyond interesting. We saw every type of scary bird imaginable – vultures, eagles, falcons, hawks, owls – the works. Each bird bigger than the last! After a very late lunch in the tearoom, surrounded by the owner’s gorgeous dogs, we braced the freezing temperatures to sit outside and prepare ourselves for the flying demonstration. It was wet, cold and generally miserable conditions, but this was all forgotten as soon as the first guide came out with a bird. I didn’t even know such birds existed and to see them flying, swooping and genuinely doing what the guides wanted was amazing! So much so that I even yelled out ‘WOW’ like an excited kid – twice. Who knew birds of prey could be so cool?! I might just get myself a falcon one day!
The day was topped off with a delicious three course meal once again.
The next day was a gem itself – just when we thought the Forest couldn’t get any better, we found a massive car boot sale, which most of you will know is a Hollard’s dream come true. Once again, the cold was forgotten, as we made our way from boot to boot buying everything from books and DVDs to vintage Queen Elizabeth Coronation mugs which I’m going to use to make candles. A few hours later we managed to drag ourselves away from the second-hand bargains, and town-hopped our way through the forest, winding our way back to London. We stopped at all sorts of picturesque towns such as Coleford, Cinderford and Cirencester – the best of which was Painswick, where we had lunch at a cosy 14th century pub, which featured Puppy Dog Pie on the menu (and no – we didn’t indulge).
All in all, a delightful wee English country weekend and one we plan on repeating again and again.
Murray loves his two Falcons!
ReplyDeleteWas there no snorer in your room? xx