Читать книгу The Cotswold Way. NATIONAL TRAIL Two-way trail guide - Chipping Campden to Bath онлайн

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The soft light of a June evening pushed shadows out of a stand of beech trees. From a pathside bank I watched the patch of darkness spread down the knoll as silvered galleon clouds drifted overhead and a blackbird piped his own last post from a hawthorn bush nearby. At the foot of the slope a roe deer slipped out of the woodland shaw and sprang across the long grass, as though leaping waves. Reluctant to break the spell I delayed my onward walk and sat, content to absorb the moment…

These are just two of the vignettes that spill unbidden from a host of memories gathered along the Cotswold Way, but each time I’ve walked the route end to end – and others when I’ve snatched isolated sections for the sheer pleasure of being there – I’ve been seduced by the region’s special attractions. There are the curving bays and spurs of the escarpment, the beech-crowned heights, open breezy commons, deeply cut dry valleys, mile upon mile of drystone walling from which anxious wrens dart and where snails cling limpet-like to the verticals.