london and beyond
 

we like to get ot know a city and want to spend 4-5 days in londan....what is the best direction to go for the remaining 4-5 days? wales is close and beautiful....... straford upon avon is close ... we dont want to rent a car if possible edinburgh too far? liverpoor...i am a beatles fan .. .lol
thanks

If it were me I would take a train, stop overnight in York and then the next day head on to Edinburgh. That can easily use 4 or 5 days - and would be totally differnt than London.

"<i>we like to get ot know a city and want to spend 4-5 days in londan.</i>"

4-5 days in London is certainly an option -- but you will in no way get to know it in that short a visit. London is HUGE w/ so much to see/do.

No problem going somewhere else too, but it sounded like you like to immerse yourselves in cities -- if so, 4 to 5 days in London won't cut it. That won't even scratch the surface.

I agree that 4-5 days in London is not a long time at all. You could spend the whole time there and do day trips:

Oxford
Cambridge
Stonehenge/Salisbury
Bath
York
Brighton
Canterbury

These are just a few examples.

Or you could head to Edinburgh like suggested above or the Cotswolds, the seaside, Wales, Paris....

The options are endless...what are you interested in?

You can easily get to all the major towns and cities by train and not bother with a car. It's when you want to visit a small village you may run into trouble. You could spend the whole time in London and do 2 or 3 day trips instead. It's up to you but there is a lifetime of things to see and do in London.

You can also fly from London to Edinburgh, look at Easyjet's website. Out of Gatwick, Luton and Stansted, if prices and times are comparable I'd fly out of Gatwick, it's slightly cheaper and easier to reach.

Kay

What they said--ha!

How long do you have?

If you want to read a couple trip reports about how we spent some days in London AND saw some of the UK, (but not Scotland--yet), you might click on my screen name and go to my trip reports. One year we spent 2 weeks in London and took 5 day trips (Oxford, Dover, Chatsworth, Silverstone Racetrack, and Salisbury/Stonehenge) via trains/bus. A great way to see a bunch without a car. Still just scratched the surface of London. Last year we had 4-ish days in London and then with a car made a 9-day loop--also wonderful for us this time.

So you could 1.just stay in London the whole time and not tire of it or 2. stay in London and take a few day trips or 3.spend days there and then train somewhere (have open-jaw tickets to avoid back-tracking, perhaps), like to York and on to Edinburgh (LOVE York, have Edinburgh on my wish list).

If you really don't want to rent a car, I personally think that you need to consider just cities, either as destinations after London or as day trips. It's not that you couldn't go to Wales or the Lake District or the Cotswolds, but you'd spend so much time in the public transportation mode, you'd probably not have much "immersion" time.

If I was you I would decide what it was you really wanted to see, and then allocate your time accordingly. Don't take the train to Edinburgh - it is a very long trip and a waste of a day. If you want to go - fly. Fly with Ryan Air or BMI Baby.

The rail system out of London is in general an efficient, timely system - so you don't need to hire a car if you don't want to. Look at the National Rail Uk website for prices and timetables.

Also have a look at the National Trust website to see if the places you want to go have a lot of cathedrals and monuments managed by them. If they do then it would be prudent to consider buying a membership, as this can significantly lower costs into these attractions ie you get into over 300 places free for a year. It is around 88 pounds for two people per year, you break even at around seeing four places in your trip. Any more than that and they really are free to enter.

"Don't take the train to Edinburgh - it is a very long trip and a waste of a day. If you want to go - fly. Fly with Ryan Air or BMI Baby."

bmibaby & Ryanair don't fly from London to Edinburgh - only BA, BMI & Easyjet - but by the time you have reached the airport, done check-in, being ritually humilated, flown, landed, collected luggage & travelled into the centre of Edinburgh you have saved very little, if any, travel time. The other option of course is to take the sleeper to Edinburgh which gets there for 7:00am and saves you a night's accommodation to boot.

Travel_Britain: We know you joined mostly to promote your blog (see all your other posts). But if you do contribute -- it would give you more credibility if you actually knew what you are talking about.

As alanRow mentions, those airlines not serving EDI. Plus door-to-door from central London to central Edinburgh -- the train is faster (or about the same time), easier, and usually cheaper because you don't have to payto travel out to/in from the airports.