Sally

We are planning a trip to the UK for approximately ten days the end of May through the first week in June.

We will arrive at Gatwick and go by train to Rye on May 29. We want to spend four or five days there to get over jet lag and to visit Battle of Hastings sites, Sissinghurst Garden and other places nearby. Then we plan to stay at Faversham for four more days.

Do you have suggestions for using public transportation from Rye and Faversham? What are places that are easy to get to from Rye? We are especially interested in gardens, churches, old houses, and history.

Do you have suggestions for a B and B or other lodging in Rye and in Faversham? We are looking for something less expensive but convenient to the center of town. We enjoy B and B's, convents and small hotels.

We don't need a tv, etc. in the room. In France and Italy we have easily found simple and pleasant places to stay, but this is our first time to come to the UK, and I am having trouble identifying them using travel guides and the internet.

Do you have any other suggestions for small towns to spend a few days in?

We are looking forward very much to our trip to the UK. Thank you for your help.

Sally

ttt

JudyC

I am sure Mr Haines will be able to give you much better suggestion, from my limited experience, Rye is a delightful old town but not the most convenient base for touring around by public transports.

For visiting gardens, state homes and sites around that area, once I stayed at Hastings, once at Royal Tonbridge Wells, as there are better train and bus networks.

jody

It's been awhile , but we enjoyed the Mermaid Inn in Rye..just watch out for the exposed timbers if you are over 5'5"!

jsmith

Sally, we have stayed at each of the following while touring the Southeast.
The websites give lists of attractions in the general area. We did have a rental car so had much more flexibility than public transportation can provide.

http://www.frithfarmhouse.co.uk/

http://www.theoldparsonagehotel.co.uk/

http://www.whitehartlewes.co.uk/default.html

Rye has train connections to Hastings, Eastbourne, Brighton, Canterbury, Royal Tunbridge Wells and Dover. If it's possible 4 miles west of Eastbourne is Beachy Head is well worth a visit.

Faversham connects to Canterbury and Dover also. It also mainlines to Victoria in London. From Faversham I would definitely visit Rochester and Chatham Royal Dockyard.

Enjoy.

jsmith

BTW, the White Hart Hotel in Lewes has an American connection. Thomas Paine lived there when the hotel had a different name and there is a plaque attached to the hotel.

If you have an interest in opera, Glyndebourne has an internationally famous opera festival.

Sally

Thanks for your helpful suggestions.

I just looked at a picture of Beachy Head- it is a spectacular view.

I am trying to figure out how practical it would be to sight see from Rye and Faversham using a combination of train or bus and taxi. Or are there tours available from these two towns?

Do you have any other towns to suggest that are also small and pretty but that might be more convenient for using public transportation?

What about Royal Tunbridge Wells as one base? What hotel did you stay at there?
My hesitation about using it as a base is that I have heard that it has a lot of traffic. But it does sound like it would make a convenient base for sightseeing.

I wish we were renting a car, but my husband does not think that driving on the left on strange roads would make a restful vacation for him!

jsmith

Sally, we stayed at the The Old Parsonage in Frant for Royal Tunbridge Wells and also at Swale Cottage near Penshurst. I can't find the latter so it may no longer be a B&B.

We found our B&Bs in The Best Bed & Breakfast published by the Globe Pequot Press. My 2002/03 edition has an ISBN of 0762711892.

I can appreciate your husband not wanting to drive but it would give you so much more freedom and if you stay in the SE your daily trips wouldn't be very extensive. The day is very long at the time you are visiting so you should have plenty of daylight to tour.

The proprietors of The Old Parsonage and Frith Farmhouse are very delightful people and we would stay at either (and Swale Cottage) without hesitation.

janis

You CAN tour around using public transport. But it is not terribly convenient or efficient. You'll end up having to do a lot more rushing about to see fewer of the sites.

There is so much to see/do w/i short drives in Kent and East Sussex but trying to squeeze them in by bus/train will eat up a LOT of your time.

As 2 examples:

~ Hever/Chartwell/Penshurst are all fantastic properties with amazing history and glorious gardens. They are all only a few miles apart and VERY easy to do in less than 1 day by car but difficult to do more than 1 by bus.

Same for Sissinghurst/Scotney Castle/Bodiam Castle/Byham Abbey. These 4 properties are all amazing and w/i a small triangle easy to get to by car. You could hit all 4 in one day w/o driving more than 30 miles in total. But by bus it would be very difficult to see more than one.

Maria_H

This area is particularly rich in National Trust properties. The National Trust site includes details of how to get to their properties, including by public transport (where possible)

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/

If you like gardens, don't miss Sissinghurst. Car hire would be better make the best of the area, if you can persuade your husband.

ben_haines_london

Trains leave Gatwick about hourly and take 40 to 50 minutes to Tonbridge. Then Rye is four stations further on, about twenty minutes, on a coastal line. Sissinghurst is not on a railway line, but I expect you reach it in about an hour by bus from Rye, perhaps with a change at Tenterden. Hastings is twenty minutes along a direct railway line from Rye, and Battle is four stations from Hastings along another line, perhaps another twenty minutes, from Hastings.

At Gatwick railway station you should ask for a copy of the free map “Rail services around London and the South east”. It lays out clearly the rich provision of trains in these busy commuting counties. At Rye and Faversham stations you should ask for the free timetsable booklets for the local lines. For my part, I think public transport, usually train, will take you anywhere,

From Rye to Faversham I think I should take trains Rye to Ashford in forty minutes and Ashford to Canterbury West in twenty minutes, a taxi across to Canterbury East station, and a train in twenty minutes to Faversham. If busses are suitable, then I should take the train from Rye to Ashford, then a bus forty minutes to Faversham.

If you go from Rye to Ashford, change, and take the local train headed for Canterbury West you stop at the pretty little town of Wye with many old houses, and at Chilham, with a square of timber-framed houses between the flint church and the gates of the castle park, which is open to the public. You did well to chose Rye, a beautiful place, though perhaps a bit too full of tourists. One station away or 3 miles by bus is Wincheslea, with a good church, court hall (now a museum) and medieval gates. Hastings and Folkestone are seaside towns, good if you like that sort of thing. Hastings has a couple of good churches and a town hall, now a museum. The site www.rhdr.org.uk/ covers the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch light railway, which starts near Folkestone, and is good, with steam trains. Hythe is worth a break of journey to see the old church.

From Faversham you reach in twenty minutes two fine old towns, Rochester and Canterbury, and each offers enough to keep you busy for a day, including a cathedral, which makes each place a city. The train runs in twenty minutes to Whitstable, with plenty of picturesque places for fishermen and oyster catchers. In an hour you can reach Dover, where the castle gives a history of the defence of the realm for two thousand years, and you can look through a telescope to Calais and the cliffs where Hitler once stood to see what he supposed was his next conquest. Thank heavens he decided to try Russia instead – though I am very sorry for what that did to Russia.

In Faversham there is a pub straight over the road from the station with seven rooms available for b and b, good for day tripping in Kent. The pub website, with online booking, is http://www.shepherd-neame.co.uk/pubs...tel_faversham/. They charge from 50 pounds for a double with b and b, and from 35 pounds for a single. The phone number is ++44 1795 533 173, and the e mail address is [email protected]/. I am sorry I am no help on Rye.

I would not add further towns to stay at. In just ten days these two will give you plenty to see and do, without repeatedly unpacking suitcases. In Faversham the tourist information centre in the Fleur de Lys house is staffed by volunteers, keen on their work. Please ask them about the pub, I think the Phoenix, which stands on Abbey Road and serves both English and Thai meals (the landlord married a Thai lady). You could ask the Faversham helpers, too, about the Saturday morning tours of St Peters in Broadstairs, see http://www.villagetour.co.uk/. Again, amateurs at their best.

I doubt that there are tours arranged from Rye and Faversham, but so long as you have a decent guide book you will be fine. Tunbridge Wells is pleasant, but without the charm of Rye and Faversham.
Please write if I can help further. Welcome to England.

Ben Haines

Sally

Wonderful! Thank you all for your help!

Mr. Haines, I knew I could count on your extensive knowledge and helpfulness. I appreciate it very much. Now I am feeling better prepared, and I am really looking forward to our trip.

I will look at the National Trust site to see what they suggest for public transportation.

I looked at the Faversham website. It is full of good information. The tourist center is sponsoring a Secret Garden tour of twenty local homes and gardens on Saturday and Sunday June 4 and 5. That is just the kind of thing we like to do.

I emailed the tourist center to ask for more information about that tour and about lodging possibilities.

We are excited about going to Canterbury and seeing the Cathedral. I am an Episcopalian and this will be very meaningful to me.

We may spend our last night June 6 in London. My husband prefers that we stay in a hotel that will be close to a train station that would go directly to the Gatwick airport since our flight leaves at one pm. Do you have a hotel suggestion for that night?

Thank you for all your help.

Sally

Sally

I just got our plane tickets for a reasonable price to London. Now I can hardly wait!

I have emailed several bed and breakfasts in Rye and Faversham.

Does any one have a suggestion for a hotel or bed and breakfast in a good location near the Victoria train station for our last night before our flight back home?

Thanks for your help.

Lynn_Gibson

A few years ago, I stayed in Rye for three nights. I loved the town - it was charming. We stayed at Jeakes House and I would definitely stay there again. Right in the center of the town, historical and very good breakfast. I found the price to be reasonable as well.

ben_haines_london

Yes, Canterbury Cathedral is beautiful. Their web site, or the Faversham tourist office, will tell you the times of Evensong, which is well sung there. If you like classical music you should try their web site for an evening concert, good in that fine setting. You will find a train back after the concert. You should ask a steward to direct you to the book of twentieth century martyrs in the far east of the cathedral: it makes you reflect. So does the tale of the death of St Thomas a Becket, who died for a view on of the church as against the state that we Anglicans, like the Orthodox, do not agree with. If you do not know T S Eliot s play Murder in the Cathedral you might like to read it now, or to hear it on tape.

Ask, of course, but I doubt that any b and b in Faversham rivals the location of the Station Hotel, beside the main rail junction.

To have plenty of time to leave Gatwick I suggest you pick a b and b or small hotel in Brighton, a city of character, half an hour down the line from the airport (so five minutes faster than London), with three trains an hour. You can find one in the city s web pages at www.visitbrighton.com, then Accommodation Search, then the Type B & B, Guest House, then a place with three diamonds.

I am glad I was useful.

Ben Haines

carolyn

If you want to spend the night in London, the Thistle Victoria Hotel has an entrance right into Victoria Station where you can get the Gatwick Express. We had a pleasant stay there.

Sally

Dear Mr. Haines,

I am very much wanting to go to Evensong at Canterbury Cathedral. Evensong is one of the most beautiful services, and I do not have the opportunity to hear it often in our small church here in Louisiana.

I will check the Canterbury website for the classical music schedule. We will enjoy going to a concert there.

I don't believe that I have read Murder in the Cathedral, but I have a recording of T.S. Eliot reading a number of his poems which includes the opening chorus from it. Now I need to read it and of course reread Canterbury Tales- part of the fun of getting ready for our trip to Canterbury.

I have emailed the Rail Hotel in Faversham to ask for a reservation, but have not received a reply yet. I do have a reservation at Culpepper Bed and Breakfast in Rye for 48 pounds per night for a double room. It looks very attractive.

Staying in Brighton for our last night is a very interesting idea. I am looking at the website you suggested. I guess that the best way to get to Brighton would be to take the train from Faversham to Victoria Station and then on to Brighton, taking about two hours total.

Thanks for your many helpful suggestions.

Sally

jsmith

Sally, it may be difficult to find but the 1964 movie "Becket" with Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole and John Gielgud is on VHS. Now I've to find it myself to see if it is still as good as I remember it was when I saw it (gulp) 43 years ago.

I've been collecting replicas of roof bosses from the cathedrals we visit and one of my favorites is from Exeter Cathedral showing the murder of Thomas a Becket on Dec. 29, 1170. The boss we have from Canterbury is believed to be the head of Joan Plantagenet, The Fair Maid of Kent, wife of Edward the Black Prince.

We visited Norwich Cathedral in November and were invited to sit in the choir stalls for an evensong. It is not something that happens in my little Episcopal church either. What a treat it is and I hope you can celebrate the service.

ben_haines_london

The route Faversham, Victoria, Brighton is probably the easiest, but you could check in Faversham to see if they have a bus to Ashford. Trains leave Ashford at 24 minutes past each hour and take 2 ½ hours to Brighton.

Ben Haines

Barbara5353

We spent a delightful week in a cottage a few miles outside Rye (in Wittersham) and explored fantastic places in Kent and Sussex using public transportation.
First, let me say that we had intended to have a car for our sojourn in the country. The narrow roads, high curbs (no shoulders), & "wrong direction driving" were too much for us.
We blew out 2 tires on the way from Gatwick to our cottage; local police kindly suggested we might save our lives and that of their countrymen if we found another mode of transportation.
As the tow truck took away our rental car, we called for a taxi to carry us onward to our cottage. Every day thereafter we rode a minibus filled with school children from the end of our lane into Rye. From Rye we caught either a train or bus to wherever we decided to go that day. Connections were excellent to Battle, which was a highlight of our trip. We also visited Hastings, Tunbridge Wells, Dover, Canterbury, and many towns and villages in-between. We used a SE England rail pass and became intimately familiar with the bus and train schedules. There was a large grocery store across from the train station in Rye where we bought provisions each day to take back via minibus to our cottage. A couple of times we hired a taxi and driver, for visits to places that were not easily reached by public transportation, or if we missed the minibus back "home". What started as rather a disaster turned out to be one of our very best trips. We really felt like "locals". Rye is a lovely town, and would make a wonderful base for your adventures.