PlanoMac

My wife and I are coming to London first week of May and plan to spend about 7 to 8 days in London. When rent a car and start driving west. I think kind of along the coast from Canterbury to Landsend in the west and then back up the coast to Bath and London home. We have about 14-16 days after we leave London. Have study all the books but my wife and know books, can how can I say..lie about how great some places are to see. What the thought??
Richard

hetismij

Well Canterbury is actually South-east, but that is pedantic of me! From Canterbury go to Deal and Dover, then along through the Romney Marsh and Dungeness (a wonderful eerie shingle headland) to Rye. Hastings is a bit grim, but has the last beach based fishing fleet in England at it's eastern end with old tackle huts, tall and black, and the freshest fish and chips imaginable. I can't remember the name of the cafe but it is up some stairs to the west of the fishing beach.
Beachy Head is lovely. Eastbourne is Ok. Brighton is young and trendy. Portsmouth if you want to go to HMS Victory otherwise give Portsmouth and Southampton a miss and go on to Lyndhurst to visit the New Forest and see the ponies. From there head for Poole and the "jurrasic Coast" of Dorset. Beaulieu house has a great motor museum.Then just pootle down through Devon and Cornwall.
It will take a good few days to do this - there are no motorways, just two lane roads. On the way back up from Bath you can get the motorway back to London, or choose to go to Stonehenge, Longleat House, or go up above Swindon and drive though the Vale of the White Horse and see the prehistoric Chalk horse and all the other ancient things around it, walk a bit of the Ridgeway, go through Wantage, birthplace of King Alfred, then head for Henley and back to London.

Have a great trip!

bilboburgler

I can recommend the Poole and Dorset bit as I grew up there.

There is a little ferry that crosses the mounth of pPoole harbour on chains takes you from some of the most expensive land in the world onto a dune area which is fantastic. Then you drive up to Swanage which is a little dull but notice the houses are made of flint. Then across the Isle of Purbeck (not an island) visit corfe castle (cromwell knocked it about a bit) Try and get to Lulworth (past the firing ranges for the army) to the Jurasic coast which is a world heritage site. The lobster in the restaurants is pretty fresh and If I was going there for a life trip I would book into one of the restaurant with rooms places on the only street in town. Don't forget the flaming cliffes of Kimeridge which is the same rock mass as Champagne!

Then of course you can see the rest of the coast if you like!

jsmith

I have a 1997 edition of Michelin Great Britian which has an itinerary for southern England. It is 1010 miles and 14 days.

Isn't the judgment of whether something is worthwhile subjective? For example, I think Portsmouth is very much worthwhile with HMS Victory, The Mary Rose and the Royal Navy Museum while hetismij thinks it can be skipped. Is one of us lying?

hetismij

Ok, there is the Victory et al but they are expensive for what they are I think and the rest of Portsmouth is grim. Given the choice I'd skip it and head for the New Forest, and Poole. Depends what you are interested in really.

janisj

there is enough to fill weeks so you will certainly see lots of great things.

One consideration - once you get into Devon and Cornwall travel will slow down considerably. 14-16 days seems like a LOT - but London to Canterbury to Lands End to Bath to London. You could easily spend 4 or 5 days just in Kent/East Sussex (Canterbury, Deal/Walmer/Dover, Sissinghurs, Scotnet, Bodiam, Rye and MANY other wonderful sites) then Fishbourne, Arundel, the Weald and Downland open air museum, the New Forest, the beautiful Dorset Coast including Lulworth Cove, Durdle Door, Lyme Regis, then south Devon, Dartmoor, Cornwall and back the through Somerset, Wells, Glastonbury, Bath.

As you see even w/ 2 weeks you could be pretty rushed.

PlanoMac

Thanks everyone for your input. Just the sort of thing I'm looking for. We had thought at first we would be able to go from the east coast to landsend and up to Wales and then come back down to Bath etc. However the more you read and look at all to see it became clear that would be rush trip to do....So we'll just have to do that next time. I notice several "Air and Army military Mueseum" from London to the west coast, any thought on these. I would think maybe one Army and one Air?

bilboburgler

Well Uk is famous for its navy and there is one great on in the Solent area (near Southhampton)

Bovington tank museum is full of (you guessed it) tanks. Do you really want to come half way around the world to see ways of killing people?

Still I think Mary Rose is less good and Victory is impressive

janisj

When you get around to South Devon, stop by Slapton Sands. Not a museum. Not even that much there - except a tank brought up off the bottom of the channel and a memorial. But it is so moving.