Paris to Somerset via London - Is This a Plan?
 

We have arranged a house exchange to Frome in Somerset, near Bath, and will spend the preceding week in Paris and take the Eurostar to London on Friday, June 12th, arriving at St. Pancras at 1:28pm. Earlier would have been preferable but the fares were higher so I booked this time slot, planning to pack a gourmet lunch for the trip.

We have been considering different options to get from London to Bath and wonder about the feasibility of driving out of London.

A week ago I found a fare of twelve pounds fifty for train from London International to Bath so this seemed like a good idea but the fare has now increased to 21 pounds each. Discount fares are also inflexible and time sensitive and it may take us longer than expected to find our way. This also involves getting to Paddington by tube. We would then have to pick up a rental car in Bath about four mile from the train station.

We could take the tube or taxi to Heathrow and pick up a rental car there but getting to the tube from the Eurostar arrival point does not seem to be easy, especially with luggage. I looked into Heathrow Express and it costs more than train fare to Bath. Taxis all this way are not inexpensive either.

Researching past threads on this topic I came across information - from Flanneruk I think - that the driving route out of London from Kings Cross is not a difficult one so this seems like the best idea. Since we have to pick up a rental car that day anyway, this would not add any additional cost except for a taxi from London International at St. Pancras to Hertz at Russell Square, not too far. Does this plan make sense?

I have also read about congestion fees so wonder whether these will apply.

Since this is a Friday afternoon, we will want to get on the road as quickly as possible after arriving in London. We will need to connect to the M4 for the trip to Bath and it seems to be better to do this before reaching the M25. I assume Hertz will give us directions for this but would appreciate any additional input about this and the general plan to drive out of London.

moolyn

I'm pretty intolerant of the "oh London's difficult to drive in" woosiness that infects this board. If I DID say KX is easy to drive from, I probably meant to Oxford (point your car west and don't change direction for 60 miles). Not Bath from Russell Sq, and not every North American would agree with my judgement (on this or anything else) anyway.

The tube station at St Pancras is about 25 yards from the exit from immigration. There ARE ten steps down to the ticket hall (though there's a lift if you can find it): it's escalators all the way to the Piccadilly Line from the ticket machines. Almost nothing could be easier - even with luggage. Thousands of Frenchpersons manage it daily, so it really can't be a problem.

If you want to drive out of London, you need to get to the Euston Rd from Russell Square (a doddle, I'd say, but not the easiest choice if you've got limited experience of urban driving on the sensible side). You then need, whatever the SatNav says, to stay on that road to either the A316 (c. 16 miles west) or M25 (another ten miles on)

Both will be chocker by 1530. I'd get the tube to LHR

PS: Congestion charge (£8) DOES apply from central London: not from Heathrow: Hertz will explain.

If driving in London/tubing worry you, look into collecting your car from Ashford or (better) Ebbsfleet if your train stops there. No special booking (just get off the train). Ebbsfleet's about an extra 55 miles driving than LHR: you'll probably arrive at the M25/M4 junction a bit earlier that way, but you'll have saved the shleps with luggage.

Frome has a train station you know (it's on the Exeter line from Westbury). My Mum lived there until recently so I know it well. Don't expect too much....

Listen to flanner for sure. I was thinking about which route to suggest and while I was doddering he beat me to it. I'd really not relish driving from Russell Sq out of London on a Summer Friday afternoon - even early afternoon.

Take the tube all the way to LHR and rent your car from there. LHR to Frome would be an easy drive.

Hi Moolyn - Why go via London?

Easyjet fly Paris(CDG)-Bristol
- dep 18.55 (arr.Bristol 19.10)
(Fare today: € 57 approx.)

Frome is an easy 45 mins drive from Bristol airport.

Steve

Steve_James: yes, flying would have been faster, easier, and likely cheaper. But it appears the OP already bought their Eurostar tickets.

Thanks, Flanneruck and janisj! This is exactly the information I needed. We live in a large city, are not afraid of urban driving and have driven in London before but it’s the Friday afternoon timing that is of concern.

The distance to the Piccadily line looks formidable on the tube map but it doesn’t sound like a problem at all - thanks Flanneruk! We won’t have a lot of luggage apart from the bottles of French wine my husband plans to bring for our stay in England, to supplement the Somerset cider. Is there any restriction on how much wine we can import?

I looked into Ashford and Ebbsfleet but couldn’t find any car rental places at either station, which seems odd. Do you know of any? I’m sure we can get off the Eurostar early if we want so could definitely consider this option.

Steve, I didn’t think of flying but it sounds like it would have been a good option.

Cholmondley – small world! Although Frome has a train station there is no rental car depot so that means Bath or London for pick up. We’ll be using Frome as a base so don’t need there to be much there other than a comfortable place to come home too after exploring the general area. There’s a lot to see in easy driving distance and we really enjoy walking in England as well.

Now, next question, what is the best station to use at Heathrow to get a shuttle for the car rental places?

"Is there any restriction on how much wine we can import?"

Assuming you bought it in a French shop, yes

110 litres each. If you've got evidence you need more (like for a silver wedding party) as much as would be reasonable for that purpose. Any more and you have to pay duty and VAT.

Don't get me wrong. Frome is perfectly pleasant. It's just a typical small english town. Ie there's nothing much there.

It's only claim to fame is that Jenson Button comes from there (whcih will mean zero to most yanks).

Cholmondley, no problem, I'll sure it will be a lovely base for our explorations. I haven't heard about the Jenson Button so will check it out but I have read that Frome has more listed buildings than any other place in Somerset and that it has one of the few bridges in the world with shops actually on it, like Bath and Florence but on a much smaller scale.

Even some of us Yanks follow F1! (though not that many to be sure)

and that it has one of the few bridges in the world with shops actually on it,>>>

It does?

Jenson Button is an F1 driver - currently leading the contest. His mum lived next door to my mum. (his parents were (are?) notorious swingers, so mum kept her distance...(at least that's what she tells me)

I will probably be a lone voice here, but I think there's something a bit mad about getting the tube all the way out to Heathrow just to pick up a car. I'd be more inclined either to take the shorter ride to Paddington, get the train to the west country and arrange to pick a car up there (much less stress), or to opt for the Hertz pickup in central London if you really prefer the driving option.

I also want to re-iterate that driving in London is more frantic than in most US cities, so having experience in the latter won't necessarily prepare you for the former.

RM67: I might agree w/ you if it wasn't a <u>Friday afternoon</u>.

Getting on the road from LHR is a piece of cake.

"I looked into Ashford and Ebbsfleet but couldn’t find any car rental places "

Probably because you were googling in the obscure colonial dialect you write in.

Google in English ("car hire Ebbsfleet"), and you immediately get
http://www.avis.co.uk/CarHire/Europe...-International

At LHR, T5 is the best option. Direct tube and much shorter walk than at Heathrow 1-3

Chomondley, oops, obviously I don't follow F1 and thought Jenson Button must have something to do with the textile trade as this was a wool area and I'm a weaver and spinner so that's where my mind goes.

Here's the famous bridge you never knew about:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rossweb...7605176706122/

Flanneruk, I think my husband can restrain himself from buying more than 110 litres of French wine.

I looked into the Ebbsfleet Avis and they don't offer any small automatics. I'll try to go at it another way now that I know there is an agency there but we may very well be tubing it to Terminal 5. Thanks for this info!

RM67, I totally agree that this would be simpler but taking a train from Paddington to Bath costs 21 pounds 50 each and we would have to book for a specific time even to get this price. Plus, we still have to pay car rental for this day anyway to get to our final destination.

Well I never noticed that. Shows how observant I am. I'm better on pubs.

Frome also has about the last open sewer in England.

Moolyn - That bridge is famous?? Well - who'd have thought it.

If you want to avoid the Friday afternoon M4 drive, you could come down by train (- or bus).

There are a couple of car hire firms in the Frome area. You could hire from Sat a.m.

Steve

Thanks to flanneruk's car hire suggestion, I did some more research and was able to arrange a small automatic through National by looking under Dartford. Although National isn't located at the station, they are willing to bring the car there for us. So this seemed like a plan.

Fortunately, I found a thread on TripAdvisor asking about disembarking at Ebbsfeet rather than St. Pancras. It's no problem - if your train stops there!

I checked the schedule below and ours doesn't. Good to know this now.

eurostar.com/pdf/…timetables_english.pdf

So the plan is to take the tube to Heathrow and pick up a car there.

Good choice! Have a great trip . . . .

"Fortunately, I found a thread on TripAdvisor asking about disembarking at Ebbsfeet rather than St. Pancras."

I refer the honourable lady to the answer I gave her on April 16 at 0847

flanneruk, the mistake is mine, not yours and I appreciate all your help and advice. You definitely mentioned this but it didn't twig with me then, unfortunately. I got that we could just get off the train but not that this was only if our particular train stopped there. Now I know that it doesn't.

We are in Pris now and my husband heard about a tube strike in London which could affect our plans to take the tube from St. Pancras to Heathrow this Friday. Can anybody advice me about this? I may be able to change out pick up location although I expect the drive out of London would be even worse than usual.

This has gotten buried so I'm bringing it to the top in hopes someone in Britain will notice it this morning and can advise.

Hi Moolyn - I suggest you re-post this as a new thread with 'tube strike' in the title - you're more likey to get an answer that way.

Steve

The tube strike is essentially today and tomorrow (Thursday).

It's just possible a few trains will be in the wrong places early Friday so there might be a wee bit of disruption or overcrowding. But union discipline is pretty strong, and most strikers don't want to lose any more wages, so it's 99% certain 99% of tube trains will be running normally by Friday.

I wouldn't worry.

Yes. Don't worry about the tube strike. It will be over on Thursday. Just keep your eyes peeled for updates at www.tfl.gov.uk

Just one thing though. If you are going to be in Bath, I would HIGHLY recommend a place I bumped into last August called Cheddar Gorge. It is a quaint little town and there is a cave there that you can visit with stalagtites and stalagmites. I had visited Wookie Hole Caves (Also in somerset) but Cheddar Gorge was like being in the mideterranean. Will be going again.

Also visit Aunt Sally's cafe in Bath. Lovely cream teas :-)

Thanks so much, flanneruk and aden, for this strike update! My husband heard it mentioned on the sports news as it was going to affect a major event at Wembley. I'll check the updates.

Aden, after visiting the caves in the Dordogne, I'm very interested to visit the one in Someret now too so thanks for the recommendation of which one to see.

Wookie Hole is fine - but it is a tourist trap. I can't believe you don't have at least as good where you come from (Britain doesn't do big geology really)

Cheddar Gorge has some super caves - but very few are acessible by joe bloggs. You normally have to belong to a caving club. It's very pretty though (and not bloody "quaint"!)

IT's also where the cheese comes from.

I agree w/ c_w -- Cheddar/Cheddar Gorge is worth a drive for sure. Very pretty countryside. But Wookie Hole was a tourist trap 30 years ago and is probably more so now.

Maybe more interesting than the caves would be visiting some of the neolithic (and fake neolithic) sites like various long barrows, Cerne Abbas and other chalk figures -- those sorts of things . . . .

Sadly, CW has got it wrong.

The Cheddar Gorge is where the cheese originated. Cheddar's made anywhere these days, and there's no decent Cheddar made round the gorge any more.

For good Cheddar (and, apart from 36 month Parmesan, hardly any cheese on earth matches a really good farmhouse Cheddar), go to any major British supermarket (Waitrose does it best), or talk to any serious-looking deli west of Oxford. Most of the stuff sold round the gorge is the muck the supermarkets won't touch. But the mark of an English deli is their Cheddar, Stilton and bacon.

Far too many sell fabulous kalamata olives but crap English cheese, ham or bacon. Have no truck with them

Thanks, guys! We'll visit the Cheddar Gorge but, alas, not the caves, and we'll buy our Cheddar Cheese at Waitrose, if possible.

You are right about the caves. However, even though i have been to Luray Caverns (http://www.luraycaverns.com/), I still really enjoyed Wookie hole and still cannot wait to go to Cheddar caves (only drove past and stopped once or twice). You can also abseil there.

But moolyn, even driving through is well worth the experience. Look out for little crevices.

What a load of plonkers you lot are, you know so little about Summerset (or even Somerset). The place is WOOKEY Hole, and its just outside Wells, which is well worth a detour for anyone in the area.

I cannot think that Cheddar would impress anyone who has ever seen a real canyon or caves, and you have to watch out for climbers and parascenders as you drive up the Gorge. However, each to his own.

Here I sit, in our very comfortable exchange home on the outskirts of Frome, where it was light enough to look out on miles of beautiful countryside until about 10:00. So our plan to get from Paris to Somerset worked. Thanks to all of you who offered advice and suggestions!

It took us about an hour and a half to buy tickets and take the tube out to Heathrow from St, Pancras, boring but not unreasionable. Once at terminal 5, it took another hour and a half to get into our car, boring and not so reasonable. Fortunately, the drive from Heathrow to Frome wasn't bad at all. Traffic was heavy on the M25 but once we got into the designated M3 exit lane and then on the M3 and A303, we moved along very well. Within the next 90 minutes we had passed Stonehenge and were in Somerset.

Today we visited the Frome Farmer's Market and chose some cheddar, not the oldest and stinkiest but close. It's a start, until we find a Waitrose. We also toured the town on foot, following the brochure available at the tourist office where the pleasant woman at the desk didn't know where the famous bridge was until I pointed out the photo in the brochure. The thing is, because the shops on the bridge block the river on one side, you don't really feel that you are on a bridge unles you cross the road. We enjoyed our tour and think Frome is a lovely little town and that it will be a great base for exploring Somerset.