A short 3 day trip from London
 

Hi,

Me and my husband get over with our exams in June, and can get out of London on the weekend around 5-6th July. We can take Monday off, so will have 3 days to spend.

We were hoping to have a relaxed holiday...with walks and some visits to churches…castles or cathedrals. I know it's still too vague, but we haven't visited too many churches or cathedrals or museums to make up our minds if we enjoy them or not. What we really do like is explore places on foot, learn about the architecture and history or take long scenic walks.

We like to visit places at a leisurely pace and spend sometime there. We have just moved to London and haven't explored the rest of the country yet. We are planning a one week trip in September to Cotswolds...but are open to any ideas right now (except Cotswolds).

We like to read about the place we are going to however given the fact that we would just get over with the exams, we may not have much time to do so this time around. So would like to go to a place about which we can read about in a day or two and not do complete injustice to it. We do not want to drive, so good train and bus connections are a must.

What place would you suggest? We considered going to Edinburgh, but decided against it, as we wouldn't have been able to visit all the places we want to in Scotland in such a short period. Also we would like to research it more thoroughly before we go. We were looking at Cambridge or Oxford, though we might visit Oxford as a part of our trip to Cotswolds.

Please suggest a place to which we can do justice to in three days.

I know I should have done more research, but the exams and the submissions make it very difficult to devote time after the usual everyday chores.

I would appreciate help…and hope to come back with clearer and more thought out questions for our other trips.

Thanks
G

The Lake District

Going to any large area (like Scotland) and relying entirely on public transport is always tricky. Going to somewhere compact (like Edinburgh), and not going much outside in three days makes a great deal of sense. So don't dismiss Edinburgh just because you'd like to do more research before seeing Scotland fully.

Forget Cambridge. See Oxford for one of your Cotswold days: the two just aren't different enough to warrant separate trips unless you've got months of free time.

If you've a problem with Edinburgh, I'd suggest one of Salisbury, Winchester, York or Canterbury. Walk the town on day 1, and pop into any newsagent to buy the "20 walks round here" that every paper shop in provincial Britain sells several versions of.

Spend the next day doing whichever one of them is most public transport friendly remembering that all these are towns, with a mile or two of suburb to trudge through to get to the countryside, so you need to find a walk that's easily accessible by a bus or train that runs on the dsay cincerned. English rural bus transport on Sundays is awful.

Then decide whether you want to do another on day 3, or see more of the town.

Alternatively, if you can do without the country walks, go to Liverpool. More museums and cathedrals than anywhere outside London - but the walks are good only if you like sand-dunes. Its surrounding countryside is among Britain's dullest.

And i believe Edinburgh does afford some nice walks, such as on Arthur's Seat, that immense pile of rock looming over Edinburgh

We thought York made a nice quick holiday.

Also consider the Isle of Wight, Durham, Bath or Dorchester? Plenty of interest, transport links and and good walking at any of these.

Thanks a lot for your replies. I was looking at York and realised that we really would want to limit our journey time to 2hrs...otherwise it becoms too much for a short trip...and we end up spending more than half the time on trains...

So Edinburgh for this rip is not a viable option...considering the door to door time taken on a flight/train it does come to about 5.5hrs one way...which does not seem too wise to us...As for lake district we would definitely want to go....but for more than 3 days...so some other time...Bath too we hope to cover in our Cotswolds trip as a day trip...

Will look more carefully at Salisbury and Canterbury...

A thought on Cambridge...even if we combine it with some other day trips like Bury St. Edmunds / Ely...is it still not worth it?

We do plan to be in London for the next two years...

thanks again
G

You could catch a train to Paris in a couple of hours and have a fabulous weekend. Enjoy your weekend and good luck with the exams.

Thanks Cathies for your best wishes...we would love to go to Paris sometime...however we would want to go for atleast 5-7 days...there is so much that we want to do and see in Paris...

Fair enough, we leave tonight for Italy and France and have 10 days in Paris before we come home, so I can't argue with you about that!!

g29:

Hello and welcome.

You certainly can have a lovely 3 day relaxed holiday visiting Cambridge via train and can add on Ely or Peterborough, both by train. You can catch one of those hop off and on buses right at the train station.

For a complete change of scene, head for Duxford aviation museum.

www.visiteastofengland.com has lots of information, including special Let's Go offers.

www.smoothhound.co.uk is a good site for B&B's.

Enjoy your break.

Sandy

Hi Sandy,

Thanks for the links and the suggestions...

We are still trying to decide between cambridge and York...

Will get back for more suggesstions once we decide where we are going...

Thanks