I will arriving in London at the Gatwick Airport and will need to get to Peterborough with other family memebers and our luggage. Any suggestions on the best way to do that? Also, how do I find out about getting to other areas such as Italy, Ireland or Scotland during my weeks visit. Again I will be staying in the Peterborough area.

From Gatwick can take a train to Kings Cross and change to Peterborough trains there - about twice an hour. The only glitch in this is that due to current reconstruction of Kings Cross mainline station due to the new Eurostar station being built next door, you have to get off the Thameslink (from Gatwick) and walk about three blocks down a busy sidewalk to Kings Cross to reboard trains to Peterborough. Normally you could train from Gatwick to Kings Cross then just change trains in the station with little hassle. I believe trains will be disrupted though for several months. Train is definiely the cheapest way to go. Peterborough is close to Stansted Airport which has cheap flights to many European towns - check out www.easyjet or www.ryanair for fares.

www.nationalrail.co.uk for current train schedules, fares. Put in London Gatwick to Peterborough for day you want.

Hi mom,

>...how do I find out about getting to other areas such as Italy, Ireland or Scotland during my weeks visit?<

How many weeks will you be there?

If it's wet, follow the signs for the Underground on arrival at Kings Cross Thameslink, then when, after about 200 yds of tunnel, you're clearly in the middle of the Underground system, then and only then follow the signs for the Mainline Station. If you think you'll struggle with your luggage, come back to this board and there are slightly messy ways of avoiding a shlep.

I'm fascinated by how you're planning to find the time to see anything of Ireland, Italy and Scotland: you're clearly going to see a lot of the inside of planes and trains (which presumably you can do just as easily at home)

There are fast and frequent trains to Scotland from Peterborough (all on the National Rail site). Your nearest airport, which may well be useful for Scotland as well, is Stansted, and it publishes its timetables at www.baa.com/stansted.

There is a train from Peterborough to Stansted, normally taking around 90 minutes (downloadable from http://www.centraltrains.co.uk/_your...timetables.htm).

Ira, I am only going to be there for one full week. I want to do as much as possible in that week.

flanneruk, I do not believe I will be able to all, but would like to make the most of my time, and do my research prior to arriving. Do you have any suggestions on must sees for surrounding areas?

PalQ,

Thank you for the information.

I was so hoping you had left out something -- like "3" weeks visit . . . .

But you are only there for a week. Have you been before? If not you will have MUCH more to fill your time w/o trying to squeeze in another country.

Are you flying Transatlantic? If so you are flying over night and will have lost a full night's sleep. Then you have to get up to Peterborough from Gatwick. So pretty much your first day is completely shot - between jet lag and multiple train journeys. And you last day is shot doing the reverse journey from P'borough to LGW. So your "full" week will be a lot shorter than you may realize.

You can take trains into London for day trips, you can visit Cambridge, you could visit York or any number of other places as day trips from P'borough -- but a trip to Italy or Ireland would be pretty much impossible. Not absolutely, totally impossible, but pretty impractical.

janis,

Yes we are coming from the US arriving very early UK time. Thank you for the response. What would you consider a must see for this trip? The day before we leave back to the US we will be spending the day in London so we can sleep near the airport for a late morning flight....