Hampton Court Palace - Sites to see in London
 

Hello,

This is my first post on this message bored, so bear with me please. I will be visiting London for my first time this upcoming August. I will be traveling with a friend. We will have 4 full days in London and are kind of torn of what to do. He has been there before, and went to Windsor, Leeds, and the Tower of London.

He wants to see Leeds again, but after doing some research here, I thought that making the trip to Hampton Court Palace would be better. My QUESTION is; do we buy train tickets and admission tickets in advance? Where would I do this? Or is it better just to get the train and admissions the day of the event? I am kind of confused on all of this. I would like the best price, since we are really poor college students.


Also, we were considering doing a trip to Stonehenge. Is a tour the best option for this? Or is Stonehenge even worth the trip? I have seen a few day tours for Stonehenge / Bath for about 100usd. Is this a good price? Perhaps seeing Leeds castle would be a day better spent?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, as you can tell, I am very new to travel.

Trains run every half hour from London Waterloo to Hampton Court. There is no reason to buy tickets in advance. Hampton Court is in zone 6 so the journey is covered by a travelcard for zones 1-6. If you have a travelcard for zones 1-2, show it when you buy the train ticket to Hampton Court because you only need to pay from the boundary of zone 2 to Hampton Court.
You can get there by bus which would be cheaper, but the journey would involve at least three buses and would take a lot longer.

I'm going to be a bit contraversial here and say that I didn't really enjoy Hampton Court. Admittedly it's a while since I went, but my impression was that not many of the rooms were actually open to the public and those that were were quite spartan and uninteresting.

My suggestion would be to go to Brighton (50 mins by train) and see the Brighton Pavillion which is a much more interesting building, with really beautiful decoration - hand painted wallpapers, fully equipped Regency kitchen. You then also have the old Lanes to explore with their quaint old shops, plus a good choice of restaurants and bars - or how about afternoon tea at The Grand Hotel overlooking the sea (nowhere near as pricy as the London West End Hotel afternoon teas).

When we went to Hampton Palace, we started at Waterloo Station and were directed to the Travel Office, where a very nice gent put a package together for us (at a significant discount). We took the train down and the river boat back, stopping at Kew Gardens on the way, then getting back on a boat.

I rank Hampton Court Palace as a tremendously overlooked place for London visitors - i loved it the three times i've went. the English Versailles and reeks of history. HenryVIII and his wives lived there and one of them is said to still haunt the palace from the day she was carted away to the Tower and block. And it's on a nice stretch of the Thames.

Hampton Court has great gardens, a deer park, a maze and the most complete Tudor kitchens in europe. Plus in many rooms are folks dressed in period costume demonstrating things or playing instruments. Included with the admission fee you can take several daily themed guided walks thru the various parts.

I presume you mean Leeds <u>Castle</u> and not Leeds the city - they are a couple hundred miles apart.

Leeds castle has lovely grounds/gardens but the castle itself it really nothing to write home about. There are many. MANY better castles - Leeds is really just a conference center and wedding venue.

Hampton Court Palace, Windsor Castle, or Kensington Palace would all be better. And, the Tower of London is a castle too.

Now about all these plans - you only have 4 days in London - you really don't have time for <b>any</b> day trips - but if you must - choose ONE. Either Stonehenge, or Hampton Court Palace, or Windsor. But honestly - 4 days will only let you see a few of the major sites IN London let alone anyplace else.

to clarify - I meant &quot;Leeds Castle is really just a conference center and wedding venue.&quot; (Didn't want you to think I was referring to the city of Leeds)

I thought Hampton Court was terrific...I could just picture Henry VIII frolickng there with one wife or another.

Thanks everyone for all of the help! I think Hampton Palace will be a perfect day trip, and I am very excited to see it.

For Stonehenge... I know it is a day trip and I only have 4.5 days in London, but it is something I have always wanted to see. And the added bonus of going to Bath, even if for a little while, seems like a fun time.

Hard choices!

We took a river boat to Hampton &amp; trained back. We loved it. Approaching the castle from the river (and seeing Richmond, Kew etc) was great. I kept thinking of &quot;A Man for All Seasons&quot; . . .

Ian

Note: If you want to take a boat, it makes more sense to take the train TO the Palace, and the boat back FROM the Palace to London.

Taking the boat to HCP doesn't get you there until the afternoon (it is approx a 3 hour journey give or take depending on the tide). So take a morning train getting to the Palace at opening time. Then after you've see all you want - you can then decide if you want to take the boat back in to town.

Stonehedge on the train is not so easy, since you also need to go by bus from the train station for quite a distance. I suggest...London Walks. They are great, go there every week, excellent, intelligent, educated guides and a bus from the train plus some interesting extras. Google to the website.

Actually Salisbury train station to Stonehenge could not be easier. The bus leaves once an hour and takes 20-25 mins.

How to get to Stonehenge &amp; Avebury (much better) by bus from Salisbury

www.wdbus.co.uk/htm/ta/index.asp

Hi everyone, does a boat from HC Palace take as long as a boat to HC? Does going with the current cut the time significantly? I believe the current goes from HC to the sea (towards London). thereyet

You can't judge the time just because one is going up or down stream. The Thames is also tidal, so sometimes it is quicker to travel up stream and sometimes quicker to go downstream. But on average it will take a bit over 3 hours.

And DON'T ask which days/trips will be on the incoming and which will be on the outflowing tides when you are there . . . . :)

So are we talking 3 hours give or take say 15-20 min. and leave it at that? thereyet

no it could take as much as 4+ hours against a heavy tide

Hampton Court is a wonderful place. I found the kitchen model very interesting and the kitchen area itself was very educational. There were people dressed in costumes who played music using bones, explanation about the roasting process, the pit roast was roaring (when I went) and the pie area smelled wonderful :)
The gardens were also very nice... manicured, just like Versailles but smaller. There were many swans roaming around.
Have some photos here if you're keen to see the place.

I bought ticket + admission from the counter.. it was cheaper. You can also take a boat but I think it take longer to get there.

WOW! I am guessing that only happens once a month. Heavy tides that is. thereyet

i forgot.. here's the link to the photos
http://kakijalan8.fotopages.com/?&amp;page=8

Thereyet, in central London, the river rises and falls 20-30 feet twice a day on the tides, which have effect up to a few miles short of Hampton Court.

Tide tables are published, so you could work out when it's going in or out if you really want to. But a simpler alternative is to use the train between central London and Richmond or Kingston (i.e., outside the tidal area) and a boat to or from there and Hampton Court.

There are occasional days when boats do not run from London to Hampton Court, because the low tide is in the middle of the day when the boats are due to pass the shallowest part of the river.
The journey between Westminster and Hampton Court takes anything from two and a quarter to four hours, depending on the tides.
If anyone wants to know the tides on a specific day, post a question here and I can look them up.
It generally makes more sense to get the train to Hampton Court and return by boat. The first boat from Westminster normally leaves at 1030 so you will not get there till lunchtime even on a good tide.

Just took my son to Hampton Court in April and thought it was well worth it. We got a brochure for a 2-for-1 admission when we bought our train tickets. Don't know if that special deal will still be available when you travel. We were a bit too early for the formal gardens, but they were still lovely. With only 4 days in London, you might want to do just one day trip out of the city because there is so much to see in London itself. We thought the Sir John Soanes museum to be fantastic, and I liked the Courtauld museum at Somerset House. If you have never seen the Tower of London, perhaps you should see that while your friend does something else, like going across to the Tate Modern. Also, do not miss the Victoria and Albert museum. You could spend a whole day there! And the British Museum! Plus, London Walks are lots of fun. So much to do, so little time. P.S. Take loads of money for food. Unbelievably expensive...double what it costs in the U.S. at least!

I think I read the 2-for-1 deal stops June 3.

Since the 2 for 1 deal ran from June '06 to June '07 this time, I'm pretty sure it will renew at the end of this time too. I printed my vouchers out and they had no date on them anyway. Since I'm going in mid-June, I guess I'll print new ones out right before we go anyway.

If you decide to do Hampton Court AND the Tower there is a special price that you can pay for your tickets. You can purchase them at either location for both sites. You can get more info at the website: (http://www.hrp.org.uk/)

I've done both ... and so worth it. You also might want to look up the &quot;Ceremony of the Keys&quot; at the Tower. It's the ceremonial locking of the Tower. It's free, but you have to send away for the tickets. The info for that is on the above website also.

The first time my husband and I went to England we took a really nice tour package on Globus Gateway and traveled throughout the English countryside and into Scotland. It was a great package for our first trip. We initially had 4days and 3 nights in London. While we did make several high points...Tower of London, Changing of the Guard, Westminster Abbey,Madame Tudaud's Wax Museum,Cats and a few other sights we did not have enough time to see a lot of other things we wanted to see because we took a day trip to Windsor Castle which we loved and also a day trip to Stonehenge, Bath and Salisbury. So many friends encouraged us NOT to go to Stonehenge(their comments were that it's just a pile of rocks). We loved it! My opinion is if you've ALWAYS wanted to go to Stonehenge and to also get to go to Bath I say go for it. We've been twice since then and we did go back to a few places that we had already been to but we also went to most of the other places we did not get to go to. We are going again this year the week of Thanksgiving...Friday to Friday and we are really looking forward to going on the London Eye. Have a great trip! luvlondon / aka Molly

I hope you're correct, Crazy4Hawaii. I'll be in London the same time you will be &amp; could use them.