Well, the weather turned for today. It was drizzling rain when we got out of bed. The forecast was for continued showers and highs in the mid teens. Hiking/walking in the rain is not a fun experience so we spent most of the morning figuring out logistics for our Thursday departure to London. I completed the remainder of my Trip Advisor reviews and updated our Travel Itinerary word document. My brainstorm was to take the steam train to Winchcombe and maybe check out their famous Sudeley Castle. Then we would return to Broadway on the steam train in the later afternoon in time for our reservation at The Swan for dinner at 17:00.
Over the past days we have occasionally heard a 'choo choo' sound which I thought was probably a train. In researching, there is the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway operating from a station that is about a fifteen minute walk from where we are staying. Not sure if either of us had taken a steam railway before, but it is a novelty. I find the train schedule online and we can make this happen today.
Our steam engine train comin' around the corner here she comes!
Our lunch at home today. Salami and cheese sandwiches. Sea Salt and Chardonnay Vinegar chips and carrots.
It is a fifteen minute walk in the light rain to the station located a little north and west of the village. The cost for two return tickets was 38 Pounds. You can take any seat available. The steam train departs at 12:35 with a strong lurch forward. Gentle rocking motion as the train rolls along the countryside. Five minutes in the conductor comes by to punch our tickets. At the gate I discover no discount for seniors and in fact to date I have not found a discount in Great Britain for a senior.
Lots of farmland on both sides of the railway. As usual for this area of the United Kingdom you can bring your dogs on the train. One observation for the Cotswolds is if you don't have a dog with you then you have a toddler and/or baby. Dogs are everywhere inclusive of the hiking/walking trails. In stores, on paths, restaurants, on trains...
The choo choo occurs when the train leaves the station. As well, before the train leaves the conductor blows his whistle. The engine creates a lot of steam as it wafts in big clouds through the air. I guess using the coal is not good for our environment.
You get a brochure when purchasing your ticket. Great map of the route for this railway. We left Broadway at 12:35 and arrive at Winchcombe for 13:14. We had a very long stop at Toddington, otherwise, it is not a long train ride. We are not in any rush. 
This was our first seat. Lana was keen on finding a private compartment. When we stopped in Toddington she did find us an 'upgrade'.
Lana pretty excited about our free upgrade LOL!
The train has 'heated' seats!
After we depart the train and walk in the town of Greet before the town of Winchcombe it starts to rain. The light rain turns into a shower and then heavier rain. Not long before we are both feeling wet despite having rain gear. The rain continues on and off, but mostly 'on'. We do make it by foot into Winchcombe which is a fairly large town and lots of traffic. The only real destination is the castle. Lana checks the distance and directions from the town centre and it is another fifteen minute walk. What the heck, we are already wet so let's keep walking and see. Lana says that at some point, you can't get much wetter and I beg to differ with her!
We arrive at the castle although there is no castle in sight. There are a lot of trees and a gift shop entrance. The cost for a visit of the entire site per person is around 20 Pounds. We are both now completely soaked/drenched. We talk about it and decide to head back to the train station as we can catch the 14:53 train back to Broadway, if we hurry.
Online picture of Sudeley Castle. Looks impressive. We won't ever see it, but now we have a picture. I think its claim to fame is it has the burial place of Catherine Parr, the sixth wife of King Henry VIII. Pretty sure if they tried this photo in today's weather you wouldn't see anything.
As we were walking on the main street of Winchcombe we came across this glorious old building.
Yup, Chinese restaurants can be found anywhere in the world! Lana was excited to see this place here.
Lana keen on trying the Gooseberry and Elderflower flavour, but it won't be here. Too much of a rush back to the train station.
We make it back to the train station with a margin of about ten minutes before the train is scheduled to arrive. Phew! Still raining on and off. I confirm with the train station we need to cross over the tracks using the overpass to catch our steam train back to Broadway. It is raining and we are both so wet. When the train arrives we rush along to get to the cabin towards the front that has separate compartments and we find our own. We figure people won't want to sit with us anyway since we smell like "wetness". Yes, lots of dog hair in the compartment and in fact in all the compartments. Dogs are everywhere here!
This was the soda pump at the Swan pub--Lana was fascinated with all the flavoured tonic water options.
We are looking forward to our dinner at the
Swan Inn in Broadway. Located within a five minute walk and highly recommended by the dog walker Anna that we joined up with a couple of days ago. Very stylish pub upon entry. It had lots of natural light and comfortable seating. Very unlike the usual English pubs in this area. The pub has an aura of professionalism and our dinner confirmed this. Excellent meal and we ordered one of our favourite Swedish ciders.
Great idea for Lana to reserve a table in the pub area for dinner tonight. This place was very busy with persons turned away with no reservations. Also there was only 10 tables inside the pub but more outside which unfortunately due to the rain--no one wanted to use. We prefer eating in the pub to the restaurant as it is less formal and a better atmosphere. 
Our order of a bottle of Rekorderlig Sparkling Strawberry Lime Cider. We drank two bottles with dinner tonight. A small bowl of spicy rice crackers to go with--delicious snack!
Lana's plate of Linguini with prawns, crab and chorizo sausage. Oddly, the tomato sauce was very sweet--which the dish didn't need as the seafood could have been perfectly fine with just the tomatoes.
Randy's plate of cod, chips and mushy peas. This was a huge piece of fish and almost perfectly done. The chips were excellent as well. I wasn't a fan of the mush peas as they added mint to them. Lana here--ok, edit on the definition of chips. These had the potato skin still on them and were the best chips we've had to date!
Lana's green salad which consisted of tomato, cucumber and watercress! Don't see watercress served very often but Lana loved it.
Once back at our apartment, Lana put all her wet clothes (jacket, baseball hat, etc) into the dryer to a quick spin. Well, the washer/dryers here don't exactly operate on a quick cycle of anything. We figure the dryer was on for about 2.5 hours!! Seriously. And no way to pause it or stop it. Lana was worried her rain jacket would be fried in the dryer but everything seemed ok when it finally turned off. Phew!!!
We did not have an organized hike/walk today due to the rain conditions. On the other hand, we needed to walk to the train station just outside of Broadway and then we walked to the Sudeley Castle and back again at a pretty good pace. Lana refers to todays' walk as an "urban hike" given we were walking on town streets/sidewalks and not in farmer fields or forests. My Garmin stats show about 15,000 steps for day and six floors. Pretty good. Pretty fun and nostalgic to ride a steam train.
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