dmg234

Hello: My husband and I are thinking of doing a trip to Scotland and some of England. We are thinking fly into Edinburgh, stay a few days? do a day trip to see the Scottish Highlands, experience Edinburgh then with our car rental drive to York, Durham, Northumberland coast/Bamburgh Castle. I'm wondering if 7 days (August) is enough to do all of that and really be able to see the highlights? Any thoughts much appreciated.

Thank you
Denise

thursdaysd

August in Edinburgh is festival time. The place will be packed and expensive. Unless you actually want to particpate in the festival, don't go.

In any case, seven days is barely enough time to do the other part of your itinerary, to which I would suggest adding Hadrian's Wall and maybe the Beamish outdoor museum.

janisj

Re-think what you want to see/do.

IF the Edinburgh festivals (several running concurrently) and Tattoo are important to you -- then spend 3 or 4 days in Edinburgh. But make arrangements NOW since things book up months in advance, and at very high rates.

On the other hand, if you aren't interested in the festivals/Tattoo -- then skip the city entirely. It is not a time for leisurely exploring the sites of the Edinburgh. The population literally doubles in August and triples on weekends.

7 days is a VERY short time for Edinburgh, the Highlands, Northumberland, Hadrian's Wall, Durham, and Yorkshire. That would be a bit rushed with 10 days/2 weeks.

Where were you thinking of going after Yorkshire? Where are you flying out of?

dmg234

Thank you, great points!! We are flying into Edinburgh then from Manchester back home. We could move the trip to July (not the best work wise) but we could if we should/need too and then increase the trip to 10 days actual "in town" days. If we do July that might be a bit better timing in Edinburgh. We would probably enjoy doing the Festivals/Tatoo however this might not be the year to do it. We have a DVD from two years ago that we really enjoyed watching.

Dogeared

" I'm wondering if 7 days (August) is enough to do all of that and really be able to see the highlights?"

How to answer such a question? I suppose it all depends on what YOU consider the highlights. List them please.

For example, the Royal Mile is only one street in Edinburgh but it has probably around 50 potential 'highlights'. If you wanted to visit them all, you could spend several days doing so. So which will YOU consider 'highlights' worth your time visiting? Pick from here:
http://www.bestofedinburgh.com/Page....tion=65&Page=1

Can you visit the highlights of the Scottish Highlands in a day trip? Again, it depends on what you mean by highlights. My answer would be an emphatic NO.

If what you want is to simply tick some names of a list and say, 'been there', you can do that but unless you have a very short list of what you would consider a 'highlight', a week to me would be hardly enough time to visit Edinburgh and perhaps do a day trip to one or two particular places of interest to you that are outside the city.

You might as well ask, 'is 7 days enough to see the highlights of the USA?'

dmg234

Those are great points!! So true indeed, we've done London three times and still have not see all the highlights!! I'm going to check out the link you've provided me above and see what highlights we are most interested in at this point. I was thinking 3/4 days in Edinburgh. My husband is interested in the Highlands so I'll have to find out exactly what he's most interested in seeing. Then say the balance seeing the other suggestions above, Northumberland, Hadrian's Wall, Durham, and Yorkshire. I have come to the conclusion we are moving our trip to July. I honestly completely forgot about the festival in August. By doing so we will have a solid 10 days in town, then one day on each end for travel from the US and back to the US. Thanks again everyone for all the suggestions!! Denise

jeffergray

For more information on the Edinburgh Festival, click here:

http://www.edinburghfestivalcity.com...ional-festival

As you will see, it's not like your typical US one-week arts festival. It runs 8/4 - 8/28.

You may want to consider moving your trip either into late July or early September. July is a great time to go to Scotland. Because it's so far north, the days are incredibly long. I was in Inverness once in early July, and the darkness lasted from about 12:30 a.m. to 3:30 or 4 a.m. And the weather is relatively reliable in July, which will still mean a fair number of overcast days.

Alternatively, you might want to see what you can find in terms of flights into Glasgow, on the western coast of Scotland. Edinburgh is about an hour by rail from Glasgow, if you wanted to go there for a day trip or two. Stirling Castle is about halfway in between the two and a bit north, and I remember it as being quite impressive. It's 30 miles from Glasgow by road, and about 45 minutes by train. And Glasgow has some significant points of interest in its own right.

Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park is about 30-40 miles north of Glasgow. If you can only give the Highlands one day, that might be a good place to visit.

[The classic Highlands tour encompasses a drive from Edinburgh north across the Grampian Mountains to Inverness, down the great slash of Loch Ness to the west coast, up to the Isle of Skye, and then down to Glasgow. But that would probably take 5 days at least.]

Further south, Hadrian's Wall is certainly well worth seeing, and wouldn't be far off your route, if it is at all (returning from York or Durham to Glasgow by the A69, you would drive parallel to it). Yorkshire Dales National Park and the North Pennines also offer lovely scenery in this same area, if you can afford the time to get off the motorways for a bit.

York and Durham are both very well worth seeing, but York alone deserves a full day, and then there's the stuff that's near it. Castle Howard (a 15-mile drive) is one of the very greatest of the English country houses. Fountains Abbey, near Ripon off the A1 north of York, features a beautiful set of ruins along a river in a artfully designed landscape.

On your way back north, if you choose to go all the way up the coast, Bamburgh Castle is indeed well worth-seeing -- it's incredibly dramatic and romantic -- and it's not that far from the important monastic center on the island of Lindisfarne. Alnwick Castle, not too far south of Bambrugh, is likewise a classic English castle that was used for some footage in "Downton Abbey," I believe.

Here are some mileages from Glasgow to other points of interest in northern England, using Google Maps:

Hadrian's Wall (western portions): 100-110 miles
Lake District: 120 miles
Durham: 170 miles
York: 210 miles

You have the M74 Motorway south from Glasgow down to Preston, where you would need to cut east to go to York. On the way back, you have the A1 going north from near York through Durham to Newcastle. You can then either continue north along the non-motorway portion of the A1 through Alnwick, Bambrugh, and Berwick back towards Edinburgh, or cut west along the A69, which essentially parallels Hadrian's Wall back west until it intersects with the M74. You should probably do this if you're pressed for time, but you would miss the attractions along the Northumbrian coast north of Newcastle.

As you can see, though, there are some not insignificant distances in here. If you could expand the trip to even 10 or 12 days, you would feel a lot less rushed.

jeffergray

While I was drafting the above message, you posted that you were flying back home from Manchester. That would help significantly. You seem committed to seeing some of Scotland. If you were willing to leave that for a future trip, however, you could do a wonderful tour of central and northern England within 7-10 days based upon flying in and out of Manchester.

dmg234

Wonderful information, thank you!! Due to work restrictions we can either go July 2 - 14th or Mid- August. If we choose August we only have 7 days of actual vacation days, where July we will have a sold 10/11 days vacation not including the travel days. I'll check out flying into Glasgow, I was only looking at flying into Edinburgh and using that as our base to travel Scotland giving Scotland a full 4 days, then driving to the towns in England trying to do everything you have mentioned above and flying back home direct from Manchester. It sounds like July is a lovely month for travel. I will inquire with work on if we could do end of July/beginning of August. Unfortunately early September is not an option due to work. I clearly need to take a day or two and visit all the links everyone has so kindly included and research the information provided. Thank you!!

Morgana

English school children break up for their long summer school holidays mid July making everything much busier. So your early July dates make much more sense than August.

dotheboyshall

< For more information on the Edinburgh Festival, click here: >

The EIF is only one of the festivals in August, it's not even the largest.

The biggest one is the Festival Fringe but you also have the book Festival and the Arts Festival plus the Tattoo

http://www.edinburghfestivalcity.com/#festivals

dmg234

I wanted to pass along a Thank you!! to those who provided assistance with my request. We did change the trip to end of June/beginning of July. And we increased our holiday to 14 days!! It was a fabulous trip!! We did Edinburgh, a day trip up to Loch Lomond, Stirling Castle, we rented a car and drove the coast road as much as possible on our way to York, England. We really had a wonderful time. We stopped to see Castle ruins along the way, walked around many little villages/towns and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. We drove thru North Berwick, Berwick upon Tweed, East Lothian, Firth of Forth. We stopped at Tantallon Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Alnwick Castle. We could easily go back and see so much more of Scotland, the Highlands, the west coast, etc. We normally operate at a high speed however this trip we tried to bring it down a notch and just stop where we wanted to, tool around a bit and see what we could at a more leisurely pace. We did as much as we could in York. We did the York Museum, National Railway, Treasurers House, St. Mary's, York Minster and the Jorvik. We also did some day trips out to Bolton Abby and drove around the Yorkshire Dales which were simply stunning. Since we were flying out of Manchester we did the last two days seeing Chatsworth House and the Peak District. Again a wonderful trip and many thanks to those who as always on this Forum provided wonderful guidance!! Thank you! Denise

janisj

Glad you had a great trip -- slower pace than your first plans/ideas