Cheltenham; Saturday, 18 January, 2014

Having discovered quite how close to the hotel the bus stop was, I wandered over there after Breakfast and headed into town.

I walked the short distance to the bus station to catch the bus out to Cirencester, only to find out that the buses actually left from the next street across, so I wandered over there and picked it up with a couple of minutes to spare.

A very pretty ride through parts of the Cotswolds, if slightly slow at times as the aging bus struggled to climb the hills, eventually dropped me off in the centre of Cirencester.

I had a long wander around the town, including taking in the park formed from part of the Bathurst estate, before heading over to the town museum to have a look around there. Inspired by the museum I walked out to the back of town to have a look round the remains of the Amphitheatre before heading back into the town centre.

After a brief stop for a late lunch I wandered over to the parish church, one of the largest in the UK, to have a look around, before having a walk in the Abbey Gardens, taking in the only other remaining bit of Roman ruins in the town, a small part of the town walls.

I had a bit more of a wander around town, before the skies started to fill ominously with very dark clouds. I didn’t quite make it to a café in time and got quite wet. I thought it would be a relatively short shower so I went to sit it out with a coffee.

In the end, two large coffee’s later and with the light of the day starting to fade the rain finally reduced to a mere drizzle, I made a dash for it to the bus stop so that I could get the penultimate bus of the day back to Cheltenham.

The two large coffees, the poor state of the road and the even poorer state of the buses suspension made for an uncomfortable journey, and I was quite glad to find that the shopping centre next to the bus stop was still open so that I could make use of their facilities on arrival.

I had a bit more of a walk around Cheltenham town centre, mostly looking for somewhere to get a light snack before finally wandering back to the bus stop and catching the bus back to the hotel and an early night.