One Month Itinerary to the UK
 

I am planning a one month solo trip to the UK from May 18 to June 18. I have a rough idea of my itinerary, and I am looking for comments and suggestions. I will be using public transport except for a day in The Cotswolds, as that area seemed difficult to explore efficiently via train/bus. This is my first trip to the UK, but I have been to other locations in Europe several times. My main interests are historical/cultural attractions, architecture, gardens, markets and quaint villages. I appreciate scenary, but I really do not want to do much hiking as I will be alone.

Here is my rough outline:

London
*Day Trip to Canterbury
*Half Day Trip to Hever Castle (I am mad for all things Tudor!)
*Day Trip to Windsor

Bath
*Day Trip to Salisbury and Stonehenge

Oxford
*Day Trip to Stratford-upon-Avon
*Excursion to Blenheim Palace
*Rent a car for the day to explore towns in The Cotswolds (Bourton-on-the-Water, Moreton-in-Marsh, Chipping Campden and Broadway)

Edinburgh

Hexham
*Hadrian's Wall
*Roman Forts and Museums

York
*Considering day trips to Castle Howard and/or Fountain's Abbey.

Cambridge

Return to London for the night before departure.

1. Have I missed anything or do I have anything in this itinerary that you would delete? And is this doable in a month?
2. Should I stay in Salisbury or is the day trip from Bath sufficient?
3. Should I rent the car for two days instead of one to explore The Cotswolds? And will it be difficult to find parking in Oxford when I return to the hotel?
4. Should I stay in Carlisle instead of Hexham?
5. Would you do one or both of the potential York day trips to Castle Howard and Fountain's Abbey? Is there another beautiful "ruined" abbey that is more easily accessed from York or is Fountain's Abbey not to be missed?
6. How would you allocate the 30 nights among the above locations?


Thanks for your time and assistance!

I'd you like things Tudor don't forget Hampton court!

Why do you "not want to do much hiking as I will be alone."?

About a third of the parties we pass while tramping England's (in general, and the Cotswolds' in particular) footpaths are singletons (or at least singletons plus dog): roughly 50/50 male/female.

Nowhere on earth is safer: a huge proportion of England's artistic and intellectual output has been the product of a good long solitary tramp.

It certainly doesn't look to me as though you're trying to do too much for the time you have available, depending on how much detail you want to explore for any one thing, and/or how much time you want to leave to follow up things you hadn't expected.

As far as Hadrian's Wall and all that is concerned, can I suggest another possibility? I have to say I only passed through Carlisle and Hexham, so I have no basis on which to say not to base yourself there, but if your focus
is on the Wall and the Roman forts, you'll get a more impressive and concentrated experience of both if you base yourself more centrally, at Haltwhistle, and use the bus AD122 to get to Vindolanda and Housesteads, and up to the Wall for a walk along it (or there are plenty of operators who'll do baggage transfer arrangements and book accommodation for people who want to walk along it - and you can see the best bits of it in a three-day walk). I wouldn't worry about walking alone along the Wall. At that time of year there are plenty of people doing it, if you should have an accident or anything like that.

I was just going to mention Hampton Court - definitely do not miss it - and give it most of a day. You can take a boat one way or the other to/fro London.

I think you need 2 days in the Cotswolds.

You do NOT want a car in Oxford. the center is ancient, full of bike traffic and there is no place to park (you have to leave car on the outskirts).

I would stay in London at least 4 full days on top of arrival day and the day trips. You will not believe how much there is to see and do.

Can't help much with logistics - since we always drive once we leave London.

<i> Is there another beautiful "ruined" abbey that is more easily accessed from York or is Fountain's Abbey not to be missed?</i>

Rievaulx Abbey which is a bus ride from York to Helmsley then a mile walk

Kirkstall Abbey which is in Leeds - the Abbey House Museum is interesting in it's own right

and of course St Mary's Abbey in York itself - this year's Mystery Plays were staged there.

Couple of other ideas - you could go to Birmingham or back to Heathrow and fly to Scotland or head for York from Oxford then up to Hadrian's Wall before reaching Scotland from where you fly home (book a multi-city or open jaw ticket).

Cambridge BTW is an easy day trip from London.

Wow. I just found this thread, and I'm amazed at how closely it mirrors my own tentative plans for a month in England, starting July 8 and ending August 6!

I'm curious: how far ahead of these dates should I start making reservations for reasonably priced accommodations along almost exactly the same route as the original poster will take? I hope I'm not already too late! Just joking...The books I'm reading make it sound as if I might be!

<i>I'm curious: how far ahead of these dates should I start making reservations for reasonably priced accommodations </i>

For Edinburgh you should be firming up your plans now. Both the Festival Fringe & Edinburgh Tattoo run from the 2nd August in 2013 - tickets for the latter are already on sale

I might do this in a different order- starting in the south and zig zagging my way north ending up in in Edinburgh. Then - depending on the time of your return flight - flying from Edinburgh to LHR in the early AM to catch your flight home, or if it is a morning flight, fly down the LHR the evening before and stay that night at an airport hotel.

A semi-linear route tends to be more efficient use of time than a big loop.

"<i>3. Should I rent the car for two days instead of one to explore The Cotswolds? And will it be difficult to find parking in Oxford when I return to the hotel?</i>"

Two is better than one, one is better than none. The parking situation <u>entirely</u> depends on where you are staying. In general driving/parking IN Oxford is a huge pain. But if your hotel/B&B has off street parking - problem mostly solved.

Oxford is wonderful. Cambridge is wonderful. But in all honesty, if you visit Oxford, no real need to visit Cambridge (and vice versa). They are very very similar experiences. Colleges/rivers/punts/etc/etc. Since Oxford is a given - I'd <i>maybe</i> drop Cambridge. If you keep it in the plan, do Cambridge as a day trip from London.

Since you seem to be comfortable w/ driving at least some - I'd consider renting a car for a couple of days for touring Kent. You could take a morning train from Victoria to Gatwick, pick up a car and visit Hever/Penshurst Place/Chartwell on day one, either Dover or Leeds Castle and Canterbury on day two, drop the car in Canterbury or maybe Maidstone (or Dover if you hit there at the end of the day) and take the train back to London.

Thanks to all of you for your comments...

Jamikins and NyTraveler, I could never imagine coming to England and not going to Hampton Court, it is at the top of the list!

Flanneruk and PatrickLondon, I am not avoiding solo hiking because I am afraid of trouble. I have hiked alone in Brazil, Honduras and other places with much worse crime; I just do not really enjoy hiking alone. Also, PatrickLondon, I will look into Haltwhistle. I thought that Hexham was the most centrally located town from which to visit Vindolanda and Housesteads, which was why I picked that town. Thanks for the info.

AlanRow and JanisJ, I think your idea of going one-way instead of a loop makes a lot of sense because my flight from Heathrow is at 1PM so I would have plenty of time to fly from Edinburgh to London in the morning. If I do this, then I will visit Cambridge as a day trip from London, as suggested.

NYTraveler and JanisJ, I agree that two days in The Cotswolds would be better. Do you think it is possible to park the car at a train station on the edges of Oxford for the evening? In the states suburban train stations often have large car parks to accomodate commuters.

I stayed in Haltwhistle last summer and found it very convenient to the wall. One day we walked to the wall from HW itself, and west to the Roman Army Museum. The second day we took the bus to Once Brewed, and then walked to Houseteads and Vindolanda. This was quite a bit of walking, but you can do it all by bus if you want. The town itself is quite small, but we enjoyed both our bed & breakfast (the Ashcroft) and the pub we frequented (the Black Bull). One thing I felt we missed by not going to Hexham was Hexham Abbey, which looked interesting.

As for things you might be leaving out, I would try to fit in Durham if you are interested in cathedrals. On my trip we stayed there one night between York and Haltwhistle, and I was very glad we did.

"Do you think it is possible to park the car at a train station on the edges of Oxford for the evening? "

No such thing really: the trains to Oxford's NW are just too infrequent for this to make much sense. The equivalent would be the Park & Rides (http://www.oxfordbus.co.uk/main.php?page_id=22), whence a bus into town (buses from 0600 - 2330. About £3 for parking and £3 for the return bus trip.

There are a couple of Oxford hotels (the Old Parsonage and the Cotswold Lodge but that's about it) which combine prettiness, easy accessibility by car, location on the Cotswold side of town, being within walking distance of the historic centre and reasonable parking.

But personally, I'd leave Oxford, collect a car (at Hertz Kidlington if you're unused to driving on the proper side of the road: all other hire depots require you to debouche immediately into Oxford's cyclists), toddle round the Cotswolds and stay in Woodstock, Burford, Chipping Campden or some other ancient town (nowhere worth visiting has been a village since the reign of King John, and we get tetchy about people from johnny come lately countries getting the terminology wrong)

"I just do not really enjoy hiking alone. " It's your decision. But our best countryside was designed to be seen on foot, not from a car, and not from the middle of a "must see" row of chocolate box thatched cottages. You're presumably planning to see those cottages alone: missing the view over the town from the top of a hill accessible only on foot is missing 90% of the point.

I'm not advocating 20 mile hikes (well I am, but...) I'm just pointing out that setting your face against touring the way our forbears have travelled for the past 2,000 years is missing England's single greatest cultural asset. You can see Shakespeare plays anywhere and view the Lindisfarne Gospels better online than in the British Library. You can only appreciate our 120,000 miles of footpath by walking along them.

We may be slightly at cross-purposes about the walking thing. You can see a lot without having to make it a continuous route march (although you can do that too, if you want). For example, on Hadrian's Wall, Housesteads is more or less on the Wall. Walk an hour or so along it in either direction, and you get a much better sense of what it was all about (and then you can walk down to the bus from just outside the museum).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/patrick...7594174143503/