 
Hot Air Balloon Flights
... in the Cotswolds
Favoured by holiday makers, the Cotswolds is well-known for its sleepy villages
and charming countryside. A hot air balloon ride over the Cotswolds allows you
to see the area's peaceful beauty in a new way.
The Cotswold AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) is the largest designated
area in the UK and covers some 800 square miles of timeless, tranquil, un-spoilt
countryside.
This is an area of gentle hills with stonewalls crisscrossing the landscape,
hidden river valleys with distinctive market towns and villages, steeped in
history. Cirencester (Corinium) was capital of Roman Britain, whereas the word
Cotswold comes from the Anglo Saxon words for sheep pen and open ground.
In the middle Ages the area grew wealthy producing cloth from wool, the proceeds
of which were put into building magnificent churches and manor houses, bustling
market towns and quiet picturesque villages, all built in the local honey
coloured limestone. Here buildings and landscape blend together in perfect
harmony, creating a sleepy, rural time warp.
Villages such as Bibury, Stow on the Wold, Painswick and Bourton on the Water
attract visitors from all over the world. During a hot air balloon flight we see
the less famous, but equally enchanting, villages such as Lower Slaughter,
Duntisbourne Rouse, Daglingworth, Guiting Power, and Coln St Aldwyns.
Today the Cotswolds remain an enchanted pastoral landscape of gently undulating
hills, distant panoramic views and mysterious wooded valleys.
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