London to Cornwall ...and places on the way!

Salisbury is on a main rail route to Cornwall and is one of Britain's finest old towns IME and Stonehenge is just a few miles out of town with frequent shuttle buses from Salisbury's train station. a nice town for overnighting.

Exeter is also a fine town en route to Cornwall by rail.

Coming back you can go north a bit to Bath - to me the finest English town outside of London - roman baths and Georgian spledor all around - Bath is about 1.5 hours from London by rail to get back.

www.nationalrail.co.uk has all the schedules and fares - advance online discounts are usually possible if you want to lock yourself into a specific train often weeks ahead to get the limited in number discounted fares. Full fare - just show up can be dauntingly high and if you wish to just be able to go to the station and hop any train anytime then investigate the BritEngland Railpass, which lets you without formality hop any train anytime - just show up - total flexibility and compared to such full flexible fares for you probably a good deal. Especially nice because you get out of your hotel and leisurely head to the station and board the next of literally zillions of trains going everywhere.

Great sights for British trains - www.nationalral.co.uk - all schedules for all of Britain's few dozen independent rail franchises; http://www.budgeteuropetravel.com/id11.html; www.seat61.com (for railpass prices check this site's commercial link to RailEurope) and www.ricksteves.com.

Pal, thanks for the info.
Gerribo, hope you don't mind me butting in here.
My DH would like to base ourselves in Bath to do Wells and Glastonbury also.
What do you think?
We have been on a quick day trip to Bath, but feel that we gave that area no enough time.
We would like to go to Exeter later on the trip.