hausfrau

Now there's that good old-fashioned hospitality I expect from my fellow Fodorites! BTilke, thank you for your kind offer. We are still debating our options but will certainly keep your driveway in mind!

Tulips, thanks for the vote of confidence and parking info.

noe, those rates are excellent! I had looked at the Royal Horseguards but it was way out of the ballpark. I have so far not encountered these low weekend rates everyone talks about, at least when searching for availability on the hotels' own websites. Is it better to phone or email them directly, or use an external hotel search site? I usually prefer to deal with hotels directly, but if that's they way to get such a good price, I will try it.

travelbunny

I am still concerned about your driving plans. Have you ever driven on the L side of the road? I assume your steering wheel is on the L. If you were driving a British car it would be easier. With the steering wheel on the R it is much more confusing and poor visability when you are turning across traffic. ..just think about it..

travelbunny

whoops meant to say with the steering wheel on the L it is more confusing!!! and I am getting mixed up posting..imagine me on the road in the UK with a non Brtit car.

Carrybean

In the USVI we drive on the left with steering wheels on the left side also. When I drove in the UK I would have preferred to have the steering wheel on the left rather than the right.

annhig

Hi, Hausfrau - I was wondering when your proposed Cornwall trip was going to surface - I think that your other holiday plans do have a knock-on efffect on your London choices.

For example, if you are planning on coming on to cornwall after London, the suggestion of leaving the car at Gatwick is a good one - from Dover [assuming that's your entry point to the UK] you take the motorway west til it meets the M25, then follow signs to Gatwick ,which is south of London, and as OPs have said, connected to Victoria by a very fast [for the UK] rail service.

On picking up your car again, you would simply drive north back onto the M25, then head west and follow the M25 and M3/A303 etc, til you get to Cornwall - approx 6 hours' drive, allowing for pit stops.

On the otherhand, if you were heading for North wales and/or the Lake District, leaving the car at Gatwick would make no sense at all, and it might be better to take it with you into London [not half as difficlut as some OPs would have you beleive - just drive in after 6pm in Friday, and dump it in a garage!]

As for your plans to see Cornwall, and north Wales, and the Lake District, and London- in 14 days - it can't be done [not and stay sane].

You could see London, Bath, Devon and /or cornwall, or London, North Wales and/or the Lake District, but the distances involved make fitting them all in impossible, unless you want to spend every day driving, rather than enjoying yourselves.

If you would like some more detailed ideas about Cornwall, I'll be pleased to help.

Happy planning,

REgards, ann.

caroline_edinburgh

hausfrau : even 40 years ago, when I was a child, we drove from the north of England to the outskirts of London, left the car there for a week and got the train in. It will be much less stressful.

BTilke, how kind ! Quite bolsters ones's faith in fellow Fodorites.

travelbunny : every year millions of Brits do it the other way round, i.e. take their right hand drive cars to the Continent, and it's no big deal.

travelbunny

..no "big deal" for some, but I have done the continental car in UK and do find it awkward as I am not totally turned round. Whe I rented a UK car in the UK it was fine..it probably is just me and my spatial orientation.

chartley

If you are confident about the driving, and have experience of large capital cities, then I would bring the car all the way in to your hotel. My suggestion is to choose a hotel outside the centre of London which can offer you parking at a reasonable rate, and then tavel in daily on the tube, train or bus.

I cannot offer suggestions for hotels, and you may not find one which has all the character you are looking for, but this would avoid you having to drag all your luggage on public transport, save time on arrival and departure, and offer better security while the car is not being used.

I also suggest you get a good London A-Z or other guide as soon as you arrive in England if not before, so that you can plan your route. Maps are readily available at the ferry and Eurotunnel terminals, as well as at motorway service stations.

noe847

You should try londontown.com. It shows some very good rates for lots of hotels - the Royal Horseguards is in the "mid-range" category, and the rates come up around.

I booked the Royal Horseguards through Travelocity (which offered the river view rooms.) No deposit was required and I can cancel up until the day of arrival. I don't think the hotel has any parking arrangements, however.

The Holiday Inn Mayfair was booked directly with the hotel, using my AAA membership for the rate. The website shows the parking rate there is £55 for a two night weekend.

Mimar

To answer your original question, there is no one central place where one can walk to all the London sights. It's a big place. You will be using the tube and/or buses. Mayfair is very central, but more expensive. Other areas with lots of hotels and good transportation links are Bloomsbury and South Kensington. Paddington might be a little cheaper. $300 a night won't get you far in London. People recommend Priceline for London.

Ashford International is southwest of London not far from the coast. It's a Eurostar station, so presumedly has longterm parking. I don't know much about exo-London parking, but the airports, Gatwick to the south and Heathrow to the west sound convewnient for your itinerary and have good transportation links in and out of town.

hausfrau

Whoops, sorry for that double posting earlier.

Carrybean, I had no idea that you drove on the left side in left-hand drive cars in the Virgin Islands. Very interesting! I tend to agree that driving in my familiar car on the left side would be better than driving on the right with a manual transmission.

I appreciate everyone's comments about driving in the U.K., but we are pretty set on driving our car. We are both experienced drivers, have driven extensively across Germany, Austria, France, and Switzerland over the past 18 months, and feel pretty secure about driving our own car in the U.K. even though it is left-hand drive. I had another thread on this topic, so if it's okay with you all, I'd like to bring this conversation to a close!

annhig, thanks for all the info; our itinerary is still in development. We weren't planning to go to London until the tail end of our trip. Our tentative plan is to head first to the Goodwood Festival of Speed (yes, we are car aficionados, if I have not already made that clear) and then over to northern Cornwall (specifically I would like to stay in Boscastle and hike to Tintagel - I admit to being a King Arthur fan). Then north to Wales and the Lake District. If we are really crazy we might go all the way to Scotland and then back to London. You have to understand that we are enthusiastic American road-trippers and for us the driving is part of the experience! Driving 300-400 miles in a day is normal for us. Plus we've spent years watching the guys on "Top Gear" drive around England and Wales and we want to experience it for ourselves. On the other hand, we know that only so much is possible in a 2-week timeframe, so we will be planning our itinerary carefully.

noe, thanks, I will check out londontown.

Mimar, I understand that London is big (probably far bigger than I can even imagine) and we'll have to use some public transport. I would like to be someplace central enough that we could at least walk to a few of the sights. I prefer to walk through neighborhoods rather than travel under them without really seeing them. Thanks for your suggestions; I'll definitely look into Bloomsbury and South Kensington.

LIJ

"300-400 miles in a day is normal for us" ><

annhig

Hi, Hausfrau - I'm with you all the way until you get to the driving from Cornwall to North wales, the lake district, or even Scotland bit.

I recognise that you have done a lot of driving "sur le continent", but our roads are not like US freeways, or even much like german autobahn. for one thing, traffic can be just that more dense. [and the drivers too]. On teh motorway, you can reckon on making 60 miles and hour; off the motorway, you can halve that!

and presumably you want to see something as well as drive?

as you say that you are keen walkers, the area of Cornwall around Tintagel is superb for hiking, with wonderful footpaths along the coast, [eg around my favourite spot at Morwenstow on the Devon/Cornwall border] ditto the area around Hartland, just a bit further north in Devon. THen you might make it either to North Wales, or to the lakes, or to Scotland, but PLEASE not all three.

Good luck with whatever you decide on,

REgards

Ann

PS when exactly are you planning your visit?

Mimar

And I said Ashford was southwest of London when I meant to say southeast.

hausfrau

annhig, I honestly appreciate your very rational response. I reckon I do need a bit of a reality check, but that's what trip planning is all about...you start too big and work your way to what's feasible (with the advice of helpful Fodorites, of course). I've definitely taken note of the fact that EVERYONE on this board says it takes longer to get around the U.K. than the mileage suggests, and we will certainly take that into consideration. But we ARE willing to drive for 4-5 hours in one day, spend 2-3 days in that location, then move on to the next. I know this is not the most efficient way to travel, but I don't know when I'll ever get to do another 2-week trip to the U.K. and there are a few things that I really want to see that just happen to be spread out. (Just be happy I'm not suggesting going from Cornwall to Skye and back again.)

We are going late June / early July (our schedule is dictated by Goodwood, which is the weekend of 23-24 June).

Thanks for the Cornwall/Devon tips - if you have other suggestions about hiking trails or places to eat/stay/visit in northern Cornwall, I'm all ears! Do you know Boscastle? It looks nice and I like the idea of that hike to Tintagel!

caroline_edinburgh

hausfrau, we really are trying to be helpful, not negative.

I with many others was originally just trying to warn you how horrendous driving in London is, and that for *just that part* of your trip it would be easiest to leave the car outside London.

Drive round the rest of the UK by all means. But I and others are now also concerned that you don't realise just how long it takes to get anywhere.

You say "Driving 300-400 miles in a day is normal for us." but also "we ARE willing to drive for 4-5 hours in one day".

It is just over 400 miles from our home in Edinburgh to my PILs in Pembroke. It takes us 10-11 hours.

So do drive round the country, but please consider that you may not be able to do as much as you expect without very long driving days.

alanRow

<<< Driving 300-400 miles in a day is normal for us...
...we ARE willing to drive for 4-5 hours in one day >>>

The national speed limit in the UK is 70mph and in many places it is substantially less.

Also given the number of vehicles on UK roads it's unlikely that you'd be able to average anything near the speed limit without frequently exceeding it.

travelgifts

Sentences from two different posts are not related?

caroline_edinburgh

Hausfrau used both of those sentences. We are concerned lest she thinks it is possible to drive 300-400 miles in 4-5 hours in the UK.

Even if not, I wanted to stress that 400 miles can take 11 hours, in case she thinks 400 miles is a reasonable daily target.

travelgifts

You can if you drive a 747. I am sure she got the message. I do not have answers to her other questions for Annhiga.