The Ultimate Cotswold Cycling Tour – the Iconic and Unique, Cotswold Classic
“It’s all about that moment when you are at one with your bike, the surroundings, the group that you are travelling with and then the knowledge that you have another 5 days!” A direct quote from one of our guests on our Cotswolds Cycling tour in 2016.
The Classic Cotswold Line Cycle Route
The Active England Tours Cotswolds Classic bike tour immerses our international guests in the history and heritage of our stunning landscape and the Cotswold Line Cycle Route. Our tours visit all of the following places within eight days of relaxed biking along the Cotswold Line Cycle Route,
- Windsor Castle and Windsor Great Park
- The most famous University City in the World – Oxford
- Churchill’s Blenheim Palace
- Shakespeare’s Stratford
- The Roman Baths and Jane Austen in Bath
- Stonehenge and the equally impressive Avebury, Ridgeway and White Horse Hill
- Downton Abbey at both Highclere Castle and Bampton
Cycling Right to the heart of The Cotswolds
All these iconic places are iconic in their own way and our guests are able to ride right into them via safe and secluded routes where no tour bus dare venture. For instance, by special arrangement we are able to ride inside the 2000 acre, Capability Brown designed gardens at Blenheim Palace, right up to the iconic palace where Winston Churchill was born. We are also able to bike right into the heart of Bath, normally on a Saturday which takes 20 minutes by bike and at least an hour in the traffic! On the way into Stratford we bike down a discussed railway line and pop out right in the middle of the town by All Saint’s Church where Shakespeare is buried – although last year, with the benefit of some thermal imaging it was discovered that Shakespeare’s head had been removed from his body – quite how, like so many of our myths and legends, nobody knows!
Feedback from our guests on the Cotswold Cycling Classic Tour is consistent that the most memorable parts of the tour are not the top 7 iconic attractions but the landscape, the countryside, the people and the atmosphere of our unique Cotswold landscape. 95% of the cycling takes place along the Cotswolds line where the tour visits a collection of the most idyllic towns and villages including Bibury, Burford, the Slaughters, Bourton on the Water, Stow on the Wold and much, much more.
Although we trade on the iconic places it’s difficult to explain how that “magic moment” feels. As guides, our mission is to provide the best experience possible for our guests. We can see at first hand how guests react to the countryside and the people, on the road, in the cafes and in the pubs and it is a pleasure to see the smiles on their faces and the connection they feel with our very special Cotswold cycling landscape.