London, Cotswolds, Bath, Paris itinerary?
 

My husband and I are planning an early June trip and I would appreciate comments on our itinerary. 5 nights London, 3 nights Cotswolds (base in Chipping Camden to do some trail walking), 2 nights Bath (one day to see Bath and one day for excursion to see Stonehenge and Avesbury), train back to London and Eurostar to Paris, 5 nights Paris.
Open jaw plane tickets purchased, but no other arrangements finalized so comments welcome as my understanding of distances is shaky.
Thanks in advance.

Pretty good.

The train to London and then Eurostar to Paris will involve a messy transfer from Paddington to St Pancras, but is otherwise fine. Another option would involve flying from Bristol or LHR.

The Eurostar is the best way if one is already IN London, but when you need to get into the city first, there are sometimes better/other options.

Posted late last night and thought I had given you a different option . . . But I must have sleep walked through it :)

I might consider flipping the order of things:

Arrive LHR and take the express coach to Bath. Stay 2 nights. You'll recover from the jet lag and not have to drive/park IN Bath, which can be a pain. This will give you about half a jet lagged day and a full (hopefully recovered day) in Bath. Then pick up your rental car early on the 3rd morning and drive to Stonehenge and Avebury, then up to Chipping Campden. Then drive to LHR, drop the car and take public transport into town.

Good plan, Janis! Only downside I see is that the OP will have two large cities back to back rather than city--smaller city/countryside--city. But logistically it's better.

Is there a train from Bath directly to Heathrow or do you have to go through London city center and transfer stations?

Also, would you recommend renting a car as opposed to train travel?

Your itin is great and to your recent questions....

There is no train from Bath directly to Heathrow (it goes through Reading and to Paddington station) and you would then take Heathrow express to LHR from Paddington.

Unless you are dead set against driving in the UK I would definitely recommend renting a car at a minimum for the Cotswolds. Chipping Campden is a great base for walking including access to the Cotswold way trail but it has no rail station so you'll need a car (or take a cab from Moreton In Marsh or another town with a rail station). At least for me, one of the greatest pleasures in the Cotswolds is driving through the various villages and towns and if you haven't been in that area before you will see so much more than just by walking. So you could either rent a car at LHR and drive straight to Bath or take a coach as per Janisj's suggestion and pick up a car as you leave Bath. Then you would have a car to drive to Stonehenge unless you were planning to take a coach tour.

Logistically Janisj has a good suggestion so you don't burn as much time getting back into London for the Eurostar. I'm guessing if you haven't been on the Eurostar you might want to do it (vs flying to Paris) as it is something different and on the pro side, it drops you at Gare du Nord so you don't have to deal with transferring into Paris from the airport. However, either way is workable.
Re driving - the M4 is a main motorway that is basically like a US freeway that you would take from Cotswold/Bath area to London/LHR and off the M4 the Cotswold roads are small but fine so long as you pay attention and give extra time to get lost! Also, if you are from the US you should add extra time when looking at distances as roads are small and pretty slow travel. When my husband and I learned to drive in the UK for the first week we just really focused on helping each other remember to stay on the correct side of the road and to properly navigate roundabouts....

>>Is there a train from Bath directly to Heathrow or do you have to go through London city center and transfer stations?<<


No -- But there is an Express <u>Coach</u> (bus) that is faster and easier than doing the train to Reading/bus to LHR or train to Paddington/different train to LHR.

Janisj, Norcal Jo and dwdvagamundo - Thank you all for your input - very helpful. I'll probably be back with further questions!

OK now I'm driving myself crazy trying to figure out if the order of our trip should be London-Cotswolds-Bath or London-Bath-Cotswolds. We may take your suggestion of renting a car as it seems a fine way to explore small villages. In that case, I was thinking we could train from London to Bath, then rent a car, and drive to Cotswolds. We are taking Eurostar to Paris after, so is there an easy location to drop the car? That is my worry - I just imagine getting lost trying to find a rental car office before getting to Eurostar train. What do you all think?

<i>if the order of our trip should be London-Cotswolds-Bath or London-Bath-Cotswolds.</i>

It should be Bath-Cotswolds-London then you aren't stressing (as you are) about getting back to London in time for the Eurostar.

As for drop off point - rather depends on the car hire company. The majors all have a presence at Heathrow where it's a direct Tube ride to St Pancras - but then it would be easier to fly to Paris, or Oxford where you can take a direct train to London then Tube / taxi to St Pancras.

I agree w/ dotheboyshall and what I posted earlier. You should do London <u>last</u> because that is where you will catch the Eurostar. It makes little sense putting London at the front end and then having to go back to London to catch the Eurostar. Especially because St Pancras is not connected by train either to Bath or the Cotswolds.

Land at LHR, take the coach to Bath, collect a car as you leave Bath (you don't want or need a car IN Bath), drive to Stonehenge and up to the Cotswolds, drive to LHR, drop the car and take public transport into the city. Stay your 5 nights, train to Paris.

personally I think that the eurostar is overrated and wouldn't change my trip round just in order to experience it.

Flying from Bristol would seem much more sensible to me.

Hello mermaid2020, We are planning a last minute trip (mid February) similar to this (not Paris though) and wondered if you have any suggestions based on your experience? We are flying in and out of Heathrow, and want to see the Cotswolds, Bath, and London, and we want to see Stonehenge while there. We have 8 nights to work with and we were thinking of just having 2 bases (Cotswolds and London), but would you recommended having 3 (adding Bath)? We will be staying the first night in London just because we'll be jet lagged and will get our start from there the next morning, but we have 8 nights after this. Any advice would be apprciated.