A short break in the Cotswolds

Last week we spent an enjoyable few days near Cirencester in the Cotswolds with family. It was our first experience using Airbnb and I must admit that we were a little apprehensive, but I'm pleased to say it all worked out very well - we stayed in a lovely lakeside holiday home in South Cerney, which was in a great location to explore Cirencester and the surrounding areas.

On our first day we took the children to the Corinium Museum in Cirencester. I hadn't realised before how important a city Cirencester was in Roman times - in terms of size it was second only to London! The museum had some lovely mosaics and other Roman artefacts and was also a history of the archaeology of the Cotswolds along with some interesting pre-historic and Anglo Saxon displays as well.

We paid £1 each for the children to take part in the museum trail which was a big hit. Harry loves a museum and wants to spend time at each display but it's a little more difficult to keep Mia interested, so she loved hunting for little Stone Age knitted characters. There were also lots of games and interactive displays to entertain them.

We spent quite some time playing some Roman board games, and when they had completed the trail they were delighted to receive a museum eraser each as a gift.

Our second trip out was to Chedsworth Roman Villa. Chedsworth was one of the grandest Roman villas in Britain and it's set in some beautiful Cotswolds scenery. There are some amazing mosaics preserved inside one of the buildings and there are plenty more still to be discovered - recently many more mosaics were uncovered which have been temporarily covered up - the villa really was enormous. I was particularly fascinated by the dining room where you could see the grandest mosaics, and I found it fascinating to imagine the dinner parties that must have once taken place there.

We watched a display by some Roman soldiers, did some crafting, and the children were able to dress up in Roman outfits. We don't have many National Trust properties near to us so we've never really considered a membership, but we are now thinking that it might be a good idea to get one for a year and tick off as many properties as we can!

We had a really lovely few days away!