My Beautiful Cities

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THE THAMES PATH
This book complies with the Thames Path National Trail from the river’s resource in Gloucestershire to the Thames Barrier in London. Officially 184 miles (294km) in size (although the actual range you walk will certainly depend upon a variety of choices you make en path), the path twists, come with by its watery muse, via pristine and peaceful countryside, past historical sites and also structures, through bar, lock, dam, and also the periodic scattering of waterfowl, to a city, as soon as the key of an empire, as well as now the heart of modern day England. The river, responsible for the city’ very being, informs stories, influences artists, accommodates swans, geese, and water voles, mirrors the silhouettes of red kites as well as kingfishers, provides work, tempts adventure, as well as permits time for carefree pilgrims to procrastinate and also assume. Following its banks is a grand means to go with a ramble.

The path starts, as the river does, in a meadow in the Cotswolds; its top reaches lonely as well as wild, the meadows and financial institutions the domain of waterfowl and also willows; a collage of wild flowers, otters, fishermen and also farmers. As the waters strengthen as well as spread the settlements along its banks slowly start to grow in both size and also grandeur, and getting to Oxford, the solitude of the river gradually subsides as well as the path comes to be as much regarding historic communities, churches, abbeys and also castles as it does the river. Lechlade, Abingdon, Wallingford, Henley … they all owe their location to the Thames, and various ages, when the river was a life resource, an area of problem, a boundary, a setting of transport as well as the provider of leisure, which, the good news is– for us, a minimum of– it continues to be to now. Pressing via the ancient Goring Gap, towered above by the Chiltern Hills, you pass Runnymede– the site of the signing of Magna Carta– as well as Windsor Castle; where the planes above hint at the ominous dimension of the city to come.
Continue reading Thames Path – Thames Head to the Thames Barrier (London): 90 large-scale maps & guides to 40 towns & villages; Planning, Places to stay, Places to eat (British Walking Guides)