Some weeks ago I ran across a tour company in London that offered a longer day trip than the usual. This trip included Stonehenge, Bath, Oxford, Stratford and Salisbury all in one day. Now I cannot seem to find the site. I cant remember the title but something like, "The Ulitmate Tour." Can anybody help on this one? Thanks.

Astral Travel's offer a Compass Buster tour combining Windsor Castle, Oxford, Warwick Castle, Stratford-on-Avon, the Cotswolds including Stow on the Wold, Bath, Stonehenge and Salisbury in one day. 8am to 10.30pm. Don't laugh!! (www.astraltravels.co.uk)

Henneth, its no laughing matter. this is the way my parents want to do it. its perfect for them. if there is anybody else with a suggestion feel free to send it on. thanks.

henneth...i did not believe you so i looked it up myself. this company berates other companies for their "overloaded" tours...then goes on to describe theirs. they also say that they don't recommend this tour! weird marketing strategy...anyway here is the duration at each stop....

Windsor – 45 minutes
Stow-on-the-Wold – 15 minutes
Oxford – 30 minutes
Bath – 1 hour
Warwick Castle – 45 minutes
Stonehenge – 30 minutes
Stratford-upon-Avon – 30 minutes Salisbury – 45 minutes

If you want a more personalized visit, try www.vicstaxi.com. This guy drives you himself, either in his Mercedes or a nice minivan, to anyplace you want in that area. He's a great guy, we used him last August

Windsor Castle, Oxford, Warwick, Stratford-on-Avon, the Cotswolds including Stow on the Wold, Bath, Stonehenge and Salisbury in one day is utterly, totally ridiculous!

And using the times for Astral's mega-death tour:

Windsor – 45 minutes - it will take more than 10 minutes for some of the elderly folks to just walk from where the bus can drop them to the castle entrance. Plus 10 minutes back to the coach. That leaves a grand total of 25 minutes for the castle!

Stow-on-the-Wold – 15 minutes -- Why bother??

Oxford – 30 minutes. from where the bus can drop them it will be 10 minute walk to anywhere interesting. Leaving - TaDa - TEN WHOLE MINUTES to see Oxford. If instead, it is touring wholly by bus - then you can't see much of anything

Bath – 1 hour - not even long enough to visit the Roman Baths so I assume it is just a bus ride around looking at bldgs from the outside

Warwick Castle – 45 minutes -- from where the coaches park at Warwick - you guessed it - 5 to 10 minutes to walk to the castle. Barely 25 minutes to tour this massive castle and grounds.

Stonehenge – 30 minutes - this is the only one that makes sense - it even sounds like they get off the bus!

Stratford-upon-Avon – 30 minutes. OK - which ONE site in Stratford do you want to see -- the museum, OR the birthplace, OR the theatre, OR the church/graves, OR Shakespeare's Daughter's house??

Salisbury – 45 minutes - enough time to walk to the Cathedral and explore - sort of OK.

utterly totally insane . . . . .

Hi Chris, I'm actually from the south of england and can honestly say that's too much unless you are the kind of person who likes the quick drive by.

Stonehenge is pretty quick. Bath - Roman baths take time - is it under construction at the minute?
Oxford – why bother ?
Stratford - the whole shake spear exp is GREAT. my American hubby loved it (only have 1 hubby BTW).
Will take a 1.5 hrs most and Warwick castle is excellent if you can do this also. Salisbury cathedral excellent but i can't help but feel it's all too much in one day unless you would like to take pics of outside of buildings and not go in. Hope this helps.

I think that it was somebody in Cambridge who described this as a "Look 'n Lick" tour.
A coach draws up outside a college, everyone takes a quick photo, nips over to an ice-cream stall and returns to the coach licking the ice-cream.
They then drive off.

Aren't you all asking the wrong question here?

The tour takes 15 hours. About 10 of them are on the bus. Between mid-May and early August, all those hours will be more or less daylight.

Now you can construct a Windsor-Salisbury-Stratford-London route that's almost entirely through nice countryside on back roads: I spent a large chunk of the past weekend stuck behind coaches doing pretty much just that. And if you don't particularly want to be burdened with the finer details of the Order of the Garter, or the constitutional role of the various Beauchamps, 15 hours being driven round England's prettiest bits on a summer's day is probably a jolly nice way of spending your time.

Alternatively, you could contruct an itinerary exposing you to more Little Chefs and motorway eating joints than you'll ever want to see for the rest of your life. And time crawling through English suburban traffic is most people's idea, if not of Hell, then certainly of several centuries in Purgatory.

Obviously, 15 minutes in Stow on the Wold only gives you time to buy a few kitchen gewgaws from Scott's of Stow (though there really isn't much else in Stow anyway). But is the intervening 10 hours pleasant? Because if it is, there's lots of people this tour would suit to a T.

Not to harp, but the tour I took with Vic took most of the day, and was thus:

We took the train from London to Salisbury, arriving around 10am at Salisbury station. He picked us up at the station, and drove us to West Kennet Longbarrow (we walked up inside, took about an hour, it was cool), then to Avebury stone circle for lunch. The weather was a bit harsh, so I walked the stone circle (it's a mile wide) while my husband and Vic hung out in the pub. Then we traveled to Old Sarum, and were delighted to find a Viking re-enactment group doing a week-long event there. After Old Sarum, we went to Salisbury, and Vic left us to wander for about 2 hours, while he went and had dinner (we dined as well). Last but not least, we headed to Stonehenge for a dusk tour among the stones, which coincidentally was also used by a Wiccan group doing a ceremony. Then he dropped us off at Salisbury station for our train back, around 8pm.

All in all, a great day -- not too fast, lots of different sites. I think it crazy to try to do MORE though

PS -- the above cost us £100 total. IMHO, a great deal for a private driver for the both of us!

Presumably Astral will market this tour on the website, see who bites and if its a success then they'll keep it on for next year. If it provides a service or product that people want then okay. How many folk ask about visiting London briefly when they have a five hour layover at Heathrow? I believe people do want this 'sample platter' type tour.
Janisj, just to clear up a point on timings, Astral use minibuses so they drop off in Thames Street in Windsor, Broad Street in Oxford, the Orange Grove in Bath, etc. However because of the security at Windsor and the walk from their to the middle ward I think the tour may lose time at the first hurdle. However, minibuses are not limited to the 100kph/62mph speed limits imposed on larger buses and I expect they will go at least some way off the major roads if time permits during the 16 hours or so of the tour.
Chris1234, give us a review if your parents book this trip, I've a feeling the timings may not be kept as tight as the tour lists on the website.

henneth: I actually don't care if they used bicycles - 1 hour is not enough time to even visit the Roman Baths. 30 minutes in Oxford - why on EARTH bother? 45 minutes in Windsor isn't long enough to even tour the castle let alone walk in from the street, clear security, visit the Doll House or get waited on in one of the gift shops. And the walk from the car/coach park at Warwick will take most people at least 10 minutes to get inside the Castle itself.