NEED BEST PLAN TO SEE ENGLAND IN 5 DAYS-WITH WIFE AND 15 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER. WHAT ARE MUSTS FOR SOMEONE WHO HAS NEVER BEEN AND MAYNEVER GET TO GO BACK?

Hi <BR>I'm sorry, but you can't "see England in 5 days". You can see bits of it. What are your interests? Prefer city or rural scenes? Interested in history or art? Theater? And what's your budget like? <BR>With little information to go on, and assuming you have five full days, I would suggest basing yourself in London. Devote at least three full days to sightseeing, which is unfortunately inadquate, but life is hard. Then spend another day or two on daytrips: my suggestions would be to choose from among Bath, Stonehenge (those two can be combined on one organized bus tour if that interests you), Stratford, Windsor Castle, or Hampton Court Palace. <BR>If you would like my notes on London which includes info on daytrips, please email me. <BR>Otherwise, give us a little more information and we can better help you.

I believe you should stay in London and there are more than plenty of things to see for that number of days. You could also take day trips or tours out from there...much better idea to stay in one hotel.

I quite disagree about staying in London for the "whole 5 days" - - a key to getting better "value" for your Europe travel "dollar" is to stay IN big cities as little as possible. <BR> <BR>A relevant question is what else is on your itinerary - - you aren't go to cross an ocean for only five days, are you? If you're moving on after england, I have found it occasionally worthwhile to "move on" after as little as two days and then "come back" for more England before going "home". With airfares between London and the rest of the continent as low as they are, this can really stretch your INTRA-Europe transportation budget - - a part of Europe travel that gets overlooked far too often in putting the big picture together.

Dear JDK, <BR> <BR>I’ve just returned from a week in London with my 14-year-old daughter, so I hope I can give you some helpful information. We did at least two “big” things each day, and still there was so much we didn’t get to. <BR> <BR>Here are my recommendations, based on what we both enjoyed: <BR> <BR>*A double-decker bus ride. Because of my familiarity with the city, we didn’t do an organized tour, but it might be a good way to start your journey. There are some buses that give you an overall tour of London and let you hop off and on at various points. <BR>*Westminster Abbey and a walk around that area: Whitehall, Downing Street, etc. From there, you’re not far from the Mall—walk down toward (and to) Buckingham Palace. Changing of the Guard is at 11:30, I think. I could have skipped it, as it’s quite crowded and hard to see, but my daughter really enjoyed it. She fancied that Prince William might come out onto the balcony at any moment. He didn’t, but she loved the idea that he might! <BR>*Trafalgar Square, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery. My daughter, who doesn’t go for art museums much, did really like the National Portrait Gallery. It’s like a fine-art version of People Magazine through the ages—fun to see all the kings and queens and others. There are other great art museums in the city—the Tate, the Victoria & Albert (not just art), the Wallace Collection, the Courtauld Institute, Sir John Soane’s. But the National Gallery has such classic stuff, and it’s in such a convenient location, if you’re only going to one art museum, that’s what I’d recommend. People in this forum recommended eating at the Café in the Crypt, in St. Martin in the Fields, which is right there in Trafalgar Square. It was great—we met friends there and really loved it. My daughter and our friends’ girls did brass rubbings, which they enjoyed. <BR>*The British Museum, accompanied by a lunch across the street at the Museum Tavern. At least try to see the high points. You could spend weeks there. Also try to get in the British Library, which we didn’t have time to do. There you’ll find the Magna Carta and other written treasures that used to be in the British Museum. <BR>*The Tower. We allowed only two hours and it wasn’t nearly enough. I’d give it half a day, and buy the tickets in advance (we did, and avoided a long line). Right now they’ve got the Domesday Book in the White Tower, just temporarily. Because we’d run out of time and hadn’t realized it was there (along with medieval instruments of torture!), we didn’t get to see it. The crown jewels are awe-inspiring. Again at the advice of people in this forum, we wrote ahead and got tickets to the Ceremony of the Keys. I’d never done it before and it was great fun. If you search for it in this forum, you’ll get all the details. We made the mistake of trying to find a place to eat near the Tower, and couldn’t find a good one. I’d either visit the Tower on a separate day from the ceremony or else leave and go into central London and come back out for the 9:30 p.m. ceremony. (The Tower closes at 5 or 6 p.m.) <BR>*St. Paul’s. We attended a Sunday service there, which meant we couldn’t do things that are closed there on Sunday, like climb to the top, or go to the Whispering Gallery. I don’t know what your religious tradition is, but you might want to consider going to a service regardless. The music is wonderful, and really adds to the experience of viewing the beautiful architecture. <BR>*Shakespeare’s Globe. We didn’t go, but we were there too early in the year for a performance. I think it opens this month. <BR>*Greenwich. Take the boat. We didn’t have time to do this, as we took a day trip to Stratford, but my husband and I did it some years ago. Beautiful Wren buildings, and you get to have a foot in each hemisphere. <BR>*Either Hampton Court or Windsor Castle. We did Hampton Court, which still has a real feel of Henry VIII in places, and has the great maze to get lost in. You need at least half a day at the castle itself, and factor in a good hour each way for the trip. Another possible castle to see is Warwick, which is farther outside London, on the way to Stratford. It’s wonderful, but given your limited time you might prefer Hampton or Windsor. Our friends just happened to see Queen Elizabeth driving away when they were there. <BR>*Plays and other shows. We took in a matinee in Stratford, and in London we saw the Royal Ballet and also HMS Pinafore. My daughter tells people her favorite things were plays and palaces. We’d bought the Stratford tickets ahead, by phone from the States, but the others we bought the same day. Note that there are no performances on Sunday evenings. If there had been, we’d have gotten in another play—probably “Woman in Black” or “An Inspector Calls.” There are various websites, as you probably know, that list what’s on in the theater, so you can check ahead. Also, when you arrive in London, buy a copy of “Time Out” from a newsstand, to check the week’s listings of every event. <BR>*Lunch in Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, on The Strand. It’s touristy, sort of like Durgin Park in Boston if you’ve been there, but still fun, and you can get a pint. <BR>*A meal at the Hard Rock Café. I can’t believe I’m writing that, but my daughter loved it. It’s the original one, and it’s got the Beatles’ real suits on display. As a veteran Beatles fan, I enjoyed seeing them. We met only Americans in line, but it was actually fun to talk with them. <BR>*Madame Tussaud’s. My daughter again loved it. I also enjoyed it—the figures are so real, it’s hard not to be impressed by the workmanship. It’s crowded, and the line to get in is LONG. Either go late in the day, or else try to get the tickets ahead of time. You can go to a related wax museum, the Rock Circus, first and get a joint ticket, so you don’t have to wait in the long line at Madame’s, but we didn’t do this. My daughter was very interested, but the logistics didn’t work: the two places aren’t that close to each other, and the rock place didn’t open until pretty late in the morning. <BR>*Stand on Waterloo Bridge and look one way toward St. Paul’s and the other way toward the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Stay there at least 15 minutes and take in this great view, even if it’s raining, which it probably will be. <BR>*Take one of the “Original London Walks” or do a self-guided walk from a guidebook. The global economy has turned London into another big city, with Pizza Huts and Gaps everywhere—I believe that only by taking a walk through neighborhoods are you going to see true hints of the city’s old flavor. As Beatles fans, we took the “In My Life” walk, which brought us to Abbey Road. I’ve heard that the Jack the Ripper walk is great—but my daughter was too frightened. Actually, I was, too. <BR>*Tea in Fortnum & Mason’s. I recommend this location because it’s affordable but traditional and also because you can then do some souvenir shopping in the food hall. The tea area is in (on?) the mezzanine overlooking the food hall. You can buy tins of tea and jars of jam and lemon curd and other stuff—nice, affordable souvenirs. <BR>*Other shopping: if your teenager likes to shop, we found store called Zara that fit the bill for my daughter. It’s a Spanish company, I think, but it’s a funky kind of shop on Regent Street (or perhaps it was Oxford Street). The prices weren’t too bad—she picked out a pretty skirt to wear to her Middle School graduation. It was about $40, and she had great fun trying lots of stuff on. For souvenirs for her friends, she got Paddington Bear pencils at the Paddington Bear kiosk in—where else?—Paddington Station as well as some lip gloss at Boots the Chemist. <BR> <BR>I liked the Eyewitness Guide, published by Dorling Kindersley, and I also used London for Less. It wasn’t that great a guidebook, but we truly did get the purchase price back in discounts, and it had a map in the back. We also bought transit (subway and bus) passes ahead of time, in the States. We could use them on the trip into the city from the airport. <BR> <BR>I hope this isn’t too much to digest. This forum was so helpful to me when I was planning our trip that I’d like to return the favor to others. <BR> <BR>Enjoy your trip. <BR>

PENNY-THANKS FOR THE EFFORT-JUST THE SORT OF THING I CAN USE!

If you want to leave London - I recommend Bath - it is a wonderfully preserved, Georgian town - and the Roman baths are incomparable.