Looking Back on the Cotswold Way

I’ve already been asked if I’d walk the Cotswold Way again. The answer is yes, but also no. Yes, I would love to go on another walking trip–I’d leave tomorrow if I could. But I’m not sure I’d walk in the Cotswolds again. It was beautiful but there are many other places I’d like to walk before I return there. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy it, though, or that I wouldn’t recommend it to other people.

The trail is well-maintained and (for the most part) the waymarking is very clear. We met a couple from Cheltenham, a city in the Cotswolds, who told us that they started taking day walks along the Way because of their experience walking regular footpaths. Often, they said, they’d end up stymied by locked gates or paths that had been ploughed over by farmers. They found themselves having to climb through hedges–and since the hedges contain blackberries and stinging nettles, that would be (to say the least) an unpleasant experience–or wading through the mud of a recently ploughed field. One day they ran across a Cotswold Way path. They were surprised by its good condition and decided they’d limit their country walks to the Way. My limited experience supports what they told us. When I walked from Blenheim Palace to Oxford, the stiles and gates were in poor condition compared to what we found on the Cotswold Way. The volunteer trail wardens do an incredible job of making sure that the trail is well maintained. In fact, one of the ways you know that you’ve gotten off the path is the sudden drop in the quality of things like gates and stiles, which are suddenly old and half-rotten or kept closed by loops of twine instead of latches. Obviously local councils have more pressing priorities than maintaining footpaths. What’s even more amazing is the fact that anything needed to maintain the Way, from gates to gravel, is provided through charitable fundraising.

That doesn’t mean that the Way is groomed, though. It turns to slippery mud when it’s raining and sometimes, where gravel has been added to it (to stop erosion, I think) the stones are (as they were in Spain) large and hard on the feet. Also, because so few people walk on it (compared to the Camino Francés) it can be narrow and edged by tall grass. And while walking across grass pastures is easy on your feet, it also creates more friction and slows you down a little. We met a couple from Virginia who were unhappy with the condition of the trail, but I think their expectations were out of line. They must’ve been in their seventies and I think they were blaming the trail for the fact that they found it difficult. Because it is difficult–there’s no way around it. The hills can be steep and you have to watch where you put your feet sometimes. We were glad to have walking poles on the more challenging sections. But I don’t think that’s unique to the Cotswold Way. Parts of the Camino Francés are hard, too, and from what I’ve read other trails are even tougher.

The only drawbacks to the Cotswold Way (aside from the expense of staying in B&Bs compared to albergues or hostels) are its length–you’re just getting into the rhythm of the walk, just starting to get fit enough to tackle the hills, when it’s over–and the fact that you don’t meet many other people who are walking from one end to the other. But if you have a week or ten days and the inclination to go for a walk through some achingly pretty countryside, the Cotswold Way is worth considering.