Cotswolds

The Cotswolds is the England of calendars and jigsaw puzzles — and the remarkable thing is that it actually looks like that. The villages are built from the same honey-colored limestone that underlies the hills, giving everything a warm golden glow that peaks in the late afternoon light. Dry-stone walls divide green fields. Sheep graze on commons. Church spires rise above cottage gardens bursting with roses and foxgloves.

Bibury has Arlington Row — a terrace of weavers’ cottages from the fourteenth century that William Morris called the most beautiful village in England. Bourton-on-the-Water straddles a shallow river crossed by stone bridges where children paddle in summer. Chipping Campden has a high street of Jacobean merchant houses that looks like a film set. The best way to experience the Cotswolds is on foot — the Cotswold Way runs 164 kilometers along the escarpment, offering views west to the Welsh hills and east across the patchwork of fields below.

When to go: May through June for wildflowers and garden openings. September for golden light and harvest season. Winter brings cozy pub fires.