3-4 nights in slough for work - what to do?
 

hi fodorites,

looks like i might be in slough for work during the first week of july. been to london in 2007 and 2008 ...not dying to head into london on this trip.

i'm looking at this potential itinerary:

monday evening - depart YYZ
tuesday late morning - arrive LHR
tuesday afternoon - check into hotel ... visit windsor castle (?)
wednesday - go to office - free evening
thursday - go to office - free evening
friday - depart LHR

my hotel choices are:

1. Copthorne Hotel, Slough
2. Holiday Inn, Slough
3. Marriott Heathrow, Langley

can you please tell me if there's anything to do in/around slough? and what are my best options for getting around? (i won't have a car). also, can you comment on either of the above hotels? the copthorne is the closest to my office but would MUCH prefer to stay at the marriott (still have to figure out how i'm going to get back and forth from the hotel to the office)...

thanks!

lilaki

Slough is much maligned (google "friendly bombs"), but in reality is just a dull, soul-less suburb like anywhere else (but with a pretty railway station from some angles, and a few interesting 1930s factory buildings on its industrial estate).

There's next to nothing to do there - but it's only 20 mins from central London, 20 mins from Eton/Windsor and 40 mins from Oxford by very frequent fast trains. Avoiding using London for recreation is balmy, though July's also a great time for evening commutes into Oxford (lots of plays in college gardens and the like)

So the crucial thing - if you really don't have a car - is to be based near the railway station, in the middle of town. The Copthorne's some significant distance away, as is the Marriott. I very much doubt there's adequate public transport from either, and neither have any kind of life around them, so if you're carless there, you're stuck. From memory, there's an HI a few hundred yds' walk from the station.

What I don't understand, though, is why you don't have a car. You don't say where your office is: Slough sprawls a lot, and if the office is on one of the estates, a car's essential.

hi flanneruk,

thanks for the quick response...

to be perfectly honest, i've never driven on the 'other' side of the road and i'm not sure if really want to! it takes me a good few days in england just to get use to looking the 'other' way when crossing the street!

my company has a shuttle from the slough rail station ... i can take a bus from the marriott to the rail station and catch the shuttle from there so that's good. also, it appears that there's a bus that goes directly from the marriott to windsor castle ... also good.

the office is on bath road just west of farnham road.

thanks for the idea about an evening in oxford ... i'll look into that.

thanks!

Slough. that sucks!!
London is really your best bet for evenings.

Several years ago we returned a rental car in Slough thinking it was a small town (yeah should have checked!) and would be easy to locate hertz. It was not! Slough was well, ugly and didn't seem safe. We actually made it to the rental office (we hired a cab at the railway station to follow hiim) and when we finally made it there it was closed. The place was surrounded by razor wire and a huge sign said - to absolutely NOT leave the car. We did have that thought.

Not a Slough fan. Would commute from Windsor or other town.

I use to live in Beaconsfield years ago and drove into Slough to shop. Agree it's just a big ugly town but there are some nice surroundings such as the already mentioned Windsor and Oxford.

Since you only seem to have evenings free, Oxford or London might be your best bet.

Say hello to David Brent and Gareth at Wernham Hogg for me.

I stayed at the HI at Chalvey,a very good hotel just outside Slough and a nice twenty minute walk into Eton and Windsor. I'm sure a taxi ride would be within your budget.In July the place should be buzzing and the weather at its best

Ignore the nonsense about "unsafe" - a truly idiotic warning that you'll notice is based on absolutely zero knowledge or evidence.

Do these morons make all their decisions on such slender evidence? What a depressingly limited life they must have imposed on themselves.

One alternative I'd forgotten for an evening's entertainment is Southall: 5-10 mins on the train towards Paddington. Great cluster of Punjabi/East African Asian restaurants a few hundred yards to the left of the station (ask anyone for the Brilliant). More amazing cluster of Sikh/Hindu pubs (an astonishing number of our Sikhs can almost drink us Irish under the table) in the town centre, a few hundred yards to the station's right. Plus the usual collection of halal MacDonalds, Polish grocery stores and gold by weight merchants. And the town's main Sikh temple (there are dozens, but everyone will point you to the main one) is the second best post-WW2 religious building in Britain (the Neasden Hindu temple winning easily, and both putting Liverpool, Clifton and Coventry cathedrals into the shade)

thanks to everyone for their suggestions...

i think i will hit windsor castle the day i arrive and hang around windsor for dinner. and then i'll go to oxford on the next night.

i found a holiday inn express (not one of my company's 'preferred hotels') right next to the slough rail station so i think i may try to stay there. likely not as nice as the marriott but seems to be more convenient. esp for oxford ... and at least i have the option of heading into london if i feel like it.

tks!

hey flanneruk - you beat me! :) yes, i've been to southall before ... VERY cool.

Now you've made me yearn to visit Southall. It sounds fascinating.
In my many previous visits to London, I've always wanted to go there, having heard of the rich ethnic diversity and the hindu temple (which I'd love to photograph and add to my collection of dozens of churches, mosques and synagogues from around the world) but could never drum up enough interest from my relatives when they lived not too far off. However now that they've all moved (retired) much further away and I can get there by my own means, its on my list for my next visit to London. Thx for the info.

M

What Flanner meant was:



Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

According to British Crime Survey statistics, Slough has the worst rate of crime amongst the 15 most comparable other areas, and Slough is the least safe Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership area in the whole of the Thames Valley and South East England.[46] Slough has the highest level of reported anti-social behaviour in the Thames Valley Police area.[4

Southall is a great suggestion and Brilliant Restaurant (the one in Western Road not Madhu's) is well worth a visit, used to eat there alot when I lived in Ealing (although Mantra in Hounslow with it's garish decor but wonderful Indian cuisine is my current favourite). They are both on the bus route from Heathrow for those staying at airport hotels on the Bath Road or a short taxi ride.