‘The Cotswolds’ elicits images of honey-coloured stone villages, fiercely protected against modern intrusive development, churches competing for the prize for the tallest spire, pub gardens with welcoming hosts, excellent ale and terrific food.

Our route between the historic cities of Cheltenham and Bath will not disappoint the rosy-eyed optimist in you. It’s a roll-call of all that is most iconic in the Southern Cotswolds, while staying away from the tourist-trap towns and Cotswold Way hordes in an effort to seek out lesser-known delights.

After a night in Regency Cheltenham, with its broad avenues and fine mansions, walk to Painswick where you can visit your first “wool” church, built with the profits of the early-industrial wool trade that made the area wealthy. It is followed by two days of rambling through villages, but with a reminder of an industrial past in old mills, re-purposed or converted, and ending in royal Tetbury, where King Charles has a country house. Next comes Castle Combe, possibly the most photographed village in England, but wonderfully quiet in the evening. Bradford-on-Avon nestles on a hill above the River Avon, along which you walk to Bath, diverting to a low hill to give you a fine entry into this famous city, source of much inspiration for the novels of Jane Austen.