If you can spare 72 hours, the Cotswolds is one of the most rewarding short escapes you can make from London — honey-stone villages, walkable countryside, pubs that take their Sunday roasts seriously, and just enough hotel design to make you actually want to stay in. Most first-timers try to see too much of the Cotswolds in too little time, sprint between five villages a day, and come home with a phone full of blurry photos and a vague memory of a sheep. This itinerary is the opposite of that. It picks three honest bases, builds a route that doesn’t…