This is just a curious question as I have pretty much made up my mind. IF you had 12 days, would you have had just done London for 12 days or would you break it up to see other country/cities such as Edinburgh or Paris or...

I would like to see what other peoples thoughts are...

i know you can spend endless days in a given city but time is money and money is time

I would not spend 12 days in London. I don't even like London that much, but there are very few cities anywhere I would want to spend that much time in on a vacation. LIke most people, I have limited funds and very limited vacation time (and can only make one trip to Europe per year), so if I did that, it would really be closing me off to other experiences.

Depending on what my priorities were, I could certainly spend 12 days in London. I like really getting to know a city, settling in and discovering little places people with less time do not discover. And London has endless numbers of things to do and see.

If I had been to London before and didn't want that much time there, I would divide my time between London and Paris or Edinburgh.

Judging by your other threads, you've already bought your plane tickets. Otherwise I would recommend flying into one city and out of another makes sense. That's multi-city on airline web sites and should cost about the same as round-trip, saving you the cost and time to return to your arrival city.

And the UK imposes taxes on outbound flights. So flying into London and out of Paris would be cheaper than vice versa. Whereas Edinburgh is still the UK.

From your other threads, I understand this trip is in April. I'd skip Edinburgh in April and go to Paris. You can even do a day trip to Paris by Eurostar -- given your energetic travel style.

However, it's very tempting to add sights/sites. The more information you get the more you want to do. But there are so many sights around London that there's no need to leave England.

But the weather in April can be iffy. I don't like to make day-by-day, hour-by-hour itineraries. I make a list of sights with their hours and closing days. Then we do what we feel like subject to the weather. Go to the parks in the sunshine, museums if it's rainy and cold.

I spend on average 15+ days in London most years and still haven't seen it all. But honestly your question is unanswerable. Sometimes I stay 2 or 3 or 4 days there and spend more time in other places, sometimes I spend 2weeks just in London.

There is no right or wrong answer. People who don't like London maybe can't understand staying for an extended time . . . But don't bat an eye re visiting Paris every year.

Different strokes.

Hi N,

I would prefer to fly into London for 5 nights, train to Paris for 6 nights and fly home from there.

Stay in London and do day trips. Besides Oxford, Cambridge, and Bath, you can see Salisbury and Stonehenge, Rye, Hever Castle, Windsor Castle, Hampton Court, Stratford-on-Avon
Warwick Castle, Canterbury, and many, many others.

Yeah I pretty much made up my mind and have planned to go to Edinburgh for 4 to 5 days. I was curious what other's would have done and there is no wrong or right answers and I was just in Paris a couple months back. I should have flew into one city and out of another but oh well. I actually did that with France, flew into Nice and out of Paris which obviously saved tons of time.

Thanks everyone for responding.

I think you could do either. I have lived in London and have visited more time than I can count and I have still have only touched the surface of the city

nutsnbolts--I would do a variation of your proposed London/Edinburgh trip and Carolyn's proposed day-trip itinerary: two or three days in London, two full days in Edinburgh and the rest in the English countryide or smaller towns and cities, maybe a Robbie's tour to Stirling and Loch Lomond from Edinburgh.

IMO the countryside is the heart of Europe, and it also is much less expensive than the cities.