matthias

Is it too late to plan a trip to England: Bath, Cotswolds,Oxford and London? Thinking that London could be into last minute preparation for Olympics with street closures, etc. We are seniors who would need small tours of the area - not large buses, etc. We didn't intend to do this at this time and think maybe we are too late. Not too worried about the other areas but living near Philadelphia makes us aware of nightmare traffic at the least bottleneck.

Thanks for all advice (including reasonable and clean places to stay along the way - one of us is phobic about bedbugs as they have made headlines here)

Matthias

janisj

The Olympics won't have any impact on early June. But the Queen's Jubilee will. I'll be in the UK from mid May through the first week of June and finding accommodations in London Jubilee week was a bear. None of my normal places were available.

So what are your exact dates? If you plan it so you are outside of London between June 1 and June 5 or 6 you'll probably be OK.

"<i>Thanks for all advice (including reasonable and clean places to stay along the way - one of us is phobic about bedbugs as they have made headlines here)</i>"

What is your 'reasonable' -- what is your actual budget?

There are excellent day tours out of Bath (madMax) that would be good for seeing the area http://www.madmaxtours.co.uk/

jamikins

Agree that you will have no problems if you consider the jubilee. London is a huge city and while things are bring prepared it really won't impact you much, if at all! You can also try doing a search above for london hotels and there should be lots of ideas. Also check out www.londontown.com

flanneruk

Janisj’s being a bit too optimistic about the effect of the Olympics in Central London in June.

The Mall, which is an important cross London route for taxis and cars, closes at the end of May and doesn’t reopen until mid September. It’s still not agreed when the roads around it close, but the Olympic organizers are trying to close them from early June as well. The rest of London is trying to stop them. And is being ignored as usual

Traffic will as a result be worse than usual in Central London from June. Though buses don't use the roads due for closure in June, they'll undoubtedly be delayed by more traffic elsewhere.

It simply means using tubes and walking more, and for most visitors won’t matter a great deal. It will be a bloody nuisance for people who work in London – but why should anyone care about them? Their role in all this is to fork out endlessly escalating sums of money, put up with having their roads handed over for the exclusive use of foreign spongers as if London were communist-era Moscow and be told it’s unpatriotic to complain.

The rest of your planned itinerary will be unaffected by this pointless squandering of money on making a few sports bureaucrats feel important.

matthias

Just realized I should be in the London forum or at least Great Britain's. Thanks to jamikins and janis for your helpful advice. We had planned to finish our trip in London around the 4th June. Now we will start our trip there around May 21. Reasonable would be $100.00 to $150.00 a night. We are flexible about that. A niece had planned to drive for us after we left London but, because she is 23 yo, we will need to pay an extra charge. However we can take the train to Bath and avail ourselves of MadMax tours. I will check to see if there is one such for London since we're only good for a few miles having reached our 81st year.

janisj

"<i>Just realized I should be in the London forum or at least Great Britain's.</i>"

You are on the only forum . . . "Europe" (well, not counting Asia, United States, Cruises, etc ).

Your thread is tagged for the United Kingdom, so all is as it should be.

CarolA

"It simply means using tubes and walking more, and for most visitors won’t matter a great deal. It will be a bloody nuisance for people who work in London – but why should anyone care about them? Their role in all this is to fork out endlessly escalating sums of money, put up with having their roads handed over for the exclusive use of foreign spongers as if London were communist-era Moscow and be told it’s unpatriotic to complain."

And this should make you feel welcome to come and spend your $$$ LOL!

Actually I am going to London (I hope) for a few days in late May and have not had a horrid time finding accomodations using my "frequent sleeper" reward points from hotels so I hope that means that it won't be PACKED with tourists!

jamikins

To be honest, London is always packed with tourists, but its a huge city so I wouldnt worry too much. Plan to hit major sites first thing in the morning and later in the afternoon and you should be fine. Pubs tend to get packed in areas like Covent Garden or Leicester Square but there are so many to choose from if you just walk a few blocks out of the crowds you are sure to find somewhere to sit down.

If you arent interested in the Jubilee events then plan to be in other areas of the city that day to avoid the crowds!

I hope you have a great time in London! Its a fabulous city!

matthias

So kind of all of you to respond to my request for advice. Based on it, we decided it might be better to start in london although I think our two nieces in their 20's would enjoy the excitement of Jubilee in June. Right now we plan to spend 4 nights in London (assuming a 3 bedroom apt.requires a week's rental so that is out) then train to Bath for 2 nights then rent a car and spend 4 nights in a Cotswolds cottage. Then what? WE could either stay in Cotswolds for four more nights and do day trips or head out to either North Wales (southern) or south to Devon/Cornwall. Since it will be a school holiday in early June we are wondering if we can even get decent accomodations. We are departing June 4th, dropping off car in Bath (probably) and train back to Heathrow.

We would like to walk/drive by the sea somewhere away from crowds. There are 5 of us: 3 seniors and 2 young ladies. My wife, her sister and I are energetic, lifetime walkers, history buffs, fond of good food/pubs. Our nieces like to hike and are just great fun. I see I am going on a bit..

Any advice as to what to see where to stay appreciated.

Matthias