London for three and a half days
 

Hello!

I am finishing up the itenarary for our trip to london and was wanting some advice.

Day 1: Fly

Day 2: head from heathrow to windsor for a half day of sight seeing. Eat lunch and head back into london. Stop at the British Museum until we tire and then off to our hotel near stanstead airport.

Day 3-7: germany (munich)

Day 8: Fly back to stanstead around 3 pm. Head into london and check into our hotel. spend the night shopping and relaxing.

Day 9: Wake up early and catch a train to Bath. Hop on a mad max tour of stonehenge, avebury circles, lacock national trust village and castle combe village. Snoop around bath for a few hours, eat dinner and then head to see the roman baths by torch light. Take a late train back to london.

Day 10: Westminster Abbey, The Houses of Parliament and "Big Ben", Trafalgar Square, National Gallery (only for an hour or so), Covent Garden, Porter's English Restaurant (lunch), The Mall & Buckingham Palace, and The Tower of London. Go back to the hotel before dinner and mary poppins. (as taken from frommers :
http://www.frommers.com/destinations...055020766.html)

Day 11: last minute shopping before heading back to heathrow for an afternoon flight.

Please let me know if this is way too crazy. I know that the time is short but we do plan to be back some day, and next time will be much longer.

I think it's too fast. Have you been to London before? If not, I'd consider dropping a day trip. Bath was a full day out for me, so combining that with the Mad Max tour might be too much. Stonehenge is kind of blah, IMO.

Day 10 also looks packed, especially your activities before lunch (although it depends what time you start). But Trafalgar Sq could easily be a day, with the National Gallery and Portrait Gallery.

At first glance your itinerary sounds quite mad. And yet, as I read it over, if these are things you really want to do and are prepared to be exhausted and spend a lot of time getting from one place to another, why not?

I'm assuming on Day 10 the only places you are actually visiting are the National Gallery and the Tower of London and that you are walking/bussing by the rest. You won't have time to do anything else.

Personally, I wouldn't bother with Windsor Castle on Day 2, I'd go right to the British Museum. But again, if that's what you want, good luck.

Day 2: Logistics question. What you going to do with your luggage all day? There's no left luggage facilities at Windsor Castle. You could leave it at Heathrow for the Windsor leg but that will take time from your touring day as you'll have to return to the airport to pick it up. Also there's no left luggage at the British Museum.

Are you flying from the US? If so, you'll likely experience some jet lag along the way. Factor that into your plans.

Day 11: Unless you're planning on only walking by these places, it's "way too crazy." The National Gallery (even for an hour or so), lunch, and The Tower will take most of the day. Suggestion: pick two things from the list and go with that. If Westminster Abbey is one of those picks, you can do a walk-by of Parliament and Big Ben. Divert Covent Garden to Day 11.

You will need to holiday at home when you get back after all that!
Good luck and enjoy!

We are both young (20's) and will have two back packs and thats it as far as luggage. So we can take it with us. As far as museums go, we like art but we dont overly LOVE art. Some things will be neat to see but for the most part we will want to just pop in for a bit and pop out. I know that the train to bath is 1.5 hours long. Is that too far away? I really want to see the roman baths and some of those quaint villages...

I know it is mad but we are young still and will have time to recover when we ger home.

also we have flown from the us to australia before and we had no jet lag at all. We were so excited that we just wanted to go go go.....

Good for you! I love your enthusiasm .
We always attempt to do too much and never regret it but I usually feel sleepy for a week when we return home again.

Hmmmm. I suggest you scrap the Day 9 trip and use it to fit in some of your Day 10 itinerary (even though Day 10 only covers about 5% of Central London).

<< spend the night shopping and relaxing. >>

London isn't a 24x7 shopping experience. Personally I'd just head for Bath, spend the night & morning there before coming back via Salisbury to see Stonehenge / Avebury / Salisbury Cathedral

or

spend the night in London & take a day trip out that covers Stonehenge, Bath etc

or (best) just do one of them.

we were thinking about dropping part of our time in germany to do more london but I think that we will just end up with the same problem in germany...aka not enough time and so on. Plus the charge to change the tickets to germany will be almost as much as we payed to begin with. ($110 for both of us) BUT we will be there for less time so instead of renting a car we can get a bayern rail pass to compensate the cost. Will an extra day in london be suffecient?

Sorry - but your day 10 is nearly impossible. And I don't even care if Frommers says it is doble.

- Westminster Abbey: Most days it opens at 9:30 so that is good. However you can't just rush through - you follow the route for the public and can't really take any short cuts. Plus it is usually quite crowded so you need to count on a minimum of 90 mins there.

- The Houses of Parliament and "Big Ben" - OK - they are just a "walk by"

- Trafalgar Square/National Gallery (only for an hour or so) - plus a 15 minute walk to get there.

- Covent Garden, Porter's English Restaurant (lunch) - by the time you walk over to Porter's it will be about 1:30 at the earliest. - And you won't be through w/ lunch until 2:30 / 3:00

- The Mall & Buckingham Palace - Simply doesn't make sense after Covent Garden/Porter's since it is back near Westminster Abbey.

- The Tower of London - w/ the other things on your list that day you won't be to the Tower until 3:30 or there abouts - so plan on getting out around 5:30 - and possibly back to the hotel by 6:00 -- <b>if everything goes like clockwork</b>.

- Go back to the hotel before dinner and Mary Poppins - curtain is 7:30 so you won't have time to return to the hotel, freshen up, and eat dinner.

And day 10 isn't even the busiest of your days . . . .

I think your Day 10 is mad - even for the young. We're young, too, and I don't think that you can pack in all that on Day 10, with the travel times and lines. We went last November, and there was a bit of a line at the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey took a good long while, so I can't imagine how it will be in real tourist season. Plus, the beefeater tour at the Tower was one of my favorite parts - you have to leave a half hour for that.

I might ditch a day trip out of London, and move some of the Day 10 stuff to that day, and perhaps add one of the Tate Museums and St. Peters. I also enjoyed the London Eye, but I hear the lines can be long in the summer.

Also, I wouldn't go into Covent Garden or to that restaurant until after you've done Buckingham Palace, as it's closer to Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament.

&lt;&lt; St. Peters. I also enjoyed the London Eye, but I hear the lines can be long in the summer. &gt;&gt;

St Pauls - and fior the London Eye you can book a fastpath ticket or even hire the whole car, both of which get you past the serfs.

Young is good - however, this schedule is slightly insane even for a young person. I understand you are full of energy, but even the young get tired (I work in a University, I am surrounded by young (and tired) people much of the time.

You allow no time for delays, and trust me they can/will happen. The full day at Bath on such a short trip as yours is crazy. I realize you want to see it, but I doubt if you will even remember what you saw once fatigue sets in. I'd stay in London that day and save Bath for another trip (gives you a good reason to go back).

You may not be able to take backbacks into Windsor so do not count on that. They search people/purses, etc. just like an airport does. It seems to me last time we were there they did not allow anything &quot;big&quot;, I remember some people putting up a fuss about not being allowed to carry in a large bag (we went on so I do not know how that was resolved). Never &quot;assume&quot; anything tho, your plans can go haywire in a minute if you do.

The fact that you are young is good, but allow some time for something spontaneous, don't lock yourself into an iron-clad schedule.

I also might add that with your Day 10 set up the way you have it you can probably forget about getting to the theater in time for the curtain to go up. Unless you plan on literally running through the Tower of London you will not get back in time with your current plan. The Tower should be the first place you go that day, lines are long there so you want to be out there when they open up.

I agree that all of the activities of Day 10 will be pretty tough to fit with theatre tickets that evening.

When we went to London in March, we got to the Tower at 3:30 (no lines, but it was rainy and March), and caught the Beefeater tour. Then we did the Crown Jewels (luckily no line again) and the White Tower. That's all we saw and had to leave. We had theatre tickets (curtain 1/2 hour early because it was press review night). We took the tube directly to the area of the theatre, grabbed a QUICK dinner at PizzaExpress, and raced to the theatre just in time for the curtain. Our hotel was pretty close, but even with a normal curtain time, we'd have had no time to change. We went in to the theatre in our jeans and with our parcels from the day's purchases. I felt like a bag lady.

so what I think we are going to do is drop a day from germany and not go to windsor unless we have extra time at the end. (we probably wont). Anyhow, I figure this is better in the long run!

Thanks for the help and if you have any comments on the new changes please let me know!

We recently got back from our trip to London, and while we were there for a longer period of time than you will, we did cram lots of activities in.

We did almost all of your day 10 in one day, with the exception of Tower of London. Look at your map and maybe re-route your order so you are doing things close together. If the tube is running smoothly that day, this can help you get to the places but walking is a great experience in itself.

If you do Tower of London, I would suggest doing a quick a dinner, that's probably all you'll have time for. There are wonderful organic sandwich places all over London and in the theatre district.

&quot;i&gt;We did almost all of your day 10 in one day, with the exception of Tower of London&quot;

That is one mighty big exception - the most time consuming for both travel to/from and for touring. It is about a 3 or 4 hour bite out of the days no matter how you cut it.

TravelinSteph: Good that you are adding a day to London - it will help a LOT. By any chance is Wed. one of the days you are in London? if so the National Gallery is open til 9:00 p.m. which may help you squeeze it in . . . .