2 Weeks in England
 

Hi all,

I'm thinking about our next holiday, around September or October 2013, and we are thinking of going to England. We have already been to Scotland and we loved it, but now we decided to check England. I need help in checking where we can base ourselves. Now to start with we are a couple, no children, aged 30 and we like museums, cities, culture, castles and nice landscape. We use buses and trains to travel around. Now, I will fly to London Heathrow and back from London Heathrow, according to flights I land at London heathrow at around 9.30am UK time. I am thinking of the last 5 or 6 days to spend them in London and do 2 day trips from there...your help is here: What other 2 bases I can use and I can even do nice day trips from there? So London definitely, then I need to other bases...I'm ready to take a 3hr train from London after the flight to start from the North. remember that I will be using buses/trains for day trips. Can you help?

If I was going to suggest a single activity to spend several days doing it would be to leave your suitcase at a hotel in Oxford, pack a day pack with essentials and 1 change of clothes and set off downstream (in the direction of London) on the Thames Path along the beautiful and historic river and stay in B&B's in riverside towns and villages along the path. Walking in England on the beautifully marked paths is one activity in which you can participate that can be done easily and better than anywhere on the planet. The available guides and maps are superb and you can choose to stay in humble guesthouses or beautiful country house hotels. I go back every year and can't get enough.

If you want to deviate from the Path there are historic properties to visit. See nationaltrust.org.uk

Google "thames path" for loads of information.

I've suggested the Thames Path in particular because of the ease of following it and the beauty of the landscape as well as the particularly nice towns and villages with lots of choice of places to stay. But if a different sort of landscape appeals to you more there are paths, long and short, covering the entire country. There's loads of information online.

If you intend to start in the north then fly into Manchester and take the train from the airport direct to York. No need to fly into Heathrow.

Base yourself in York - castles, countryside, museums easily reachable by public transport. Then work you way south to London

If you are interested in Yorkshire do a search here for Morgana - she lives in the area and I believe has posted many times about how to do day trips from York using public transport. Its a lovely area of England!

Thanks, for your replies. nice to hear that I could include York as a second base. What about Birmingham as another base..Like that I will go down from York to Birmingham to London? Your suggestions are welcome.

I wouldn't use Birmingham as a base. It's not the nicest of places. York is a great shout. You could head west and also use Bristol as another base, but that's some distance - train and scenery would be nice though!

Hi plastic_paddy, so what location do you suggest instead of Birmingham, that is centrally located (apart from York and London), as I think York and London will be my 2 bases and now I'm checking for the 3rd base.

Except London, I see no advantage for visitors to base themselves in big urban places. For me that would include Bristol as well as Birmingham. I think York, Oxford, London would be a good combination. Oxford is entertaining itself and towns in the Cotswolds as well as Thames-side towns are easily reached by bus and train from there. I find it easier to get around from smaller cities rather than the big ones providing they have regular services and these do. If you wanted to be farther south than Oxford I'd choose Bath rather than Bristol, much prettier.

Oxford is great, but is probably doable as a day trip from London (as is Cambridge).

What are people's thoughts on Stoke-on-Trent?

Stoke-on-Trent? Are you having a laugh? There are few cities in the UK that can vie with Birmingham for top spot in the "Antithetical To Tourists" league, but most assuredly Stoke is one of them.

York is in East Yorkshire - closest to the A1. And the East Coast Mainline. It therefore follows that location 2 should also be on or close to that same York-London axis. Therefore, and by way of a contrast to big city London and tourist dominated York, Stamford.

It's <i>very</i> picturesque and historic, there are good restaurants and excellent lodgings. Burleigh House is but a hop and skip away (5 mins in a taxi) and Peterborough, for its magnificent and oddly overlooked, Cathedral not much further on the train. Beyond P'boro it's 40 mins into Cambridge for all sorts of Gothic and Perpendicular delights.

To be honest - if you wouldn't just love 2/3 days in Stamford you're not doing it right.

And then, when moving on to London, it's back into Peterborough and change for the fast train and you'll be up in town within the hour.

It's a no-brainer I tell you!

Dr D.

Dr_DoGood, I didn't quite understood your post.

He's saying that Stoke on Trent is a dump and there's no point going there, and I agree.

If you want a third base in the Midlands area, there are plenty of better options. Like Stamford.

Your third base could be Bath. Should be lots of tours from there as well as buses and trains. With our car, we went to Wells, Glastonbury, Stourhead Gardens, Longleat House and nipped into Wales, driving up the pretty Wye River valley to Tintern Abbey.

But I'd also consider Oxford. No reason to reject it just because it's near London. There are several museums, the colleges. And you can do a lot from there, in addition to walking the Thames path. Woodstock and Blenheim aren't far. We did a daytrip by train to Winchester, a town full of history.

Both Bath and Oxford are on the edge of the Cotswolds, prime pretty English countryside. And you can do tours to Stonehenge and Salisbury from both.

I was thinking of something in the area of Birmingham with more appeal and came up with Stoke-on-Trent - obviously not a choice favoured by others :)

Stamford's a very good shout.

You can do Winchester from London as well (much quicker from Waterloo than Oxford) and is another one that get's overlooked.

Looking at the York to London train, Peterborough makes the most sense

Hi all..thanks for all the info. I will do some homework and get back to you, but if you have other ideas please paste them here.

Question: Some friends suggested Manchester instead of York, what do you say, or are they different from each other? Remember that what I'm after is somewhere centrally based to take 2 day trips to outer nice cities/town, no need to see mountains, but I don't want a dull base.

As different as night and day. York is one of my fab towns, lovely historic centre, easy day trips into the Yorkshire countryside, railway museum that is awesome, lovely church. Manchester is a much larger, former industrial town, much destroyed and rebuilt in modern post-war architecture. One of my least fav places in England.

Thats what I thought as well...so I have York and London definitely on my list as bases...now I'm still a bit confused about the 3rd base.

What about flying into heathrow and takIng a bus to Bath...you can do day trips to Salisbury and Stonehenge, wells etc. Then train to London and see London. Then train to York for the rest of the time then fly home from Manchester airport?