SandraLB

Any one have an absolute must visit area of Ireland? I will only have 3 days and want to concentrate on the most scenic area of Ireland but would like to visit some historic sites too.
Realize I need to be close to a major city. Most likely flying to Ireland from Edinburgh, Scotland.

annhig

Hi Sandra,

I see that this is your first post here so welcome to fodors! i hope my reply won't put you off coming back - it's certainly not meant to.

I decided to reply as i was intrigued, if not a tad worried by the heading of your thread. London, Bath etc etc all in 12 days? Even if that does not include travelling days either end [I'm assuming you're from the US, apologies if I've got that wrong] it's not a lot of time to cover the ground. Every time you move you will lose at least 1/2 a day, so that's 2 days gone, leaving you only 2 1/2 days for each place. you can't see a lot of Ireland in that time.

how are you going to organise this trip? for example Cornwall is not an obvious fit - where in Cornwall are you interested in visiting? Ditto Ireland. I can see a trip that starts in London and ends in Edinburgh, [an open jaw flight] with perhaps a day trip to Bath from London, but I honestly can't see how you can fit Ireland and/or Cornwall into that - you just don't have the time.

halfapair

Hi Sandra, I have the same concerns as annhig. Have you been to London and these areas before? Do you have some ideas on what you'd like to see in London? What are your interests? I have been to London twice - once for 9 days, and again for 7 days. I still haven't come close to seeing everything.

Bath is lovely and it's worth spending 2-3 days there.

If you only have 12 days, I would say that a London - Bath - Cornwall trip would be doable. Or London - Edinburgh. Or London - Dublin.

I think you need to narrow down your itinerary, or you'll find yourself rushing from place to place without seeing much of anything.

janisj

Three countries + London in 12 days . . not really practical nor doable.

It will be hard to squeeze in 4 or 5 days in London (woefully inadequate) a few days somewhere in England and 2 days in either Edinburgh or Dublin (IMO Edinburgh is mush superior) into 12 days. There wouldn't be any time left for "Ireland" or "Scotland" .

And IF you mean 12 days total (including travel days) even that much would be really REALLY difficult.

Cornwall is a looooong way from London so just London, Bath and Cornwall would more than fill 12 days. And again if you mean 12 days total -- you'd be cutting all three very short.

Why not give us more details what you have in mind and we can help you sort it out

Sue_xx_yy

I second halfapair.

Heathrow to Salisbury by car - 2 hours.
Salisbury to Cornwall - just under 3 hours
Cornwall to Bath - 2.5 hours

Bath back to Heathrow - 1.75 hours.

Heathrow is about an hour by tube (commuter train) to London, so total Bath to London

Even if you assign only 2 nights to each of Salisbury, somewhere in Cornwall, Bath, and London, and I am not necessarily recommending you do so, that's 8 nights.

Direct train London to Edinburgh is 4.5 hours. There goes the ninth day. After 2 nights in Edinburgh, you're up to 11 nights.

Ireland can't be fit in this trip, don't try it. Just going there for Dublin makes sense only if you have to be there for business or whatever. You don't mention why the 3 days.

janisj

oops -- that should have been >>much superior<<

I really should preview (and stay off the wine )

crckwc1

I have to agree with the above replies that you're trying to see/do/go too much for the time you have. That said, 35 years ago DH and I took our first trip to the UK on limited time and limited budget, trying to see "everything." It was a whirlwind, but it was a fit for us. It gave us an overview so we could concentrate on which areas we really wanted to spend more time on the next trip. I planned our self-drive tour using ideas and schedules set out in a coach tour brochure. We varied our tour a bit to include our specific interests. Did it work? For us, it was a wonderful introduction to travel - hurried, yes, but a good beginning.
In just less than 2 weeks, we visited London, trained to York and Edinburgh, rented a car and drove back to London via the Lake District and the Cotswolds. The itinerary was taken partly from a bus tour brochure.
You might consider going by a travel agency and pick up bus tour brochures just to see how much time is devoted to getting to and from, seeing the sights, etc, then plan your trip accordingly.

crckwc1

...another thought... If Ireland is at the top of your list, why not fly to Shannon (sights within easy driving distance of Shannon are among my favorites), fly to Edinburgh, train or fly to London, fly home. or reverse.

SandraLB

Thanks everyone for your opinions and suggestions. I know it's a short period of time to cover this much ground. Our plan is to fly from the U.S. to Edinburgh (3 nights), Train to London (2 nights) . I've been there and the couple we're traveling with have not thus we're going to spend only 1 day sight seeing. Train to Bath area (2 nights) and base out of there for two days of sight seeing. We may have to cut the Cornwall region out entirely. It was on the request list form the other couple. I was hoping we could fly from Bristol direct to Shannon but haven't found any flights online. There are flights direct to Dublin but I don't want to spend the time driving from Dublin to Shannon. My plan is to spend 4 days in Ireland, basing outside of Shannon.

If need be we can cut it down even more. We want to take in a lot but not to the point of sheer exhaustion! I just hated to be so close to Scotland and miss it. Perhaps the best bet would be to concentrate on Scotland and Ireland only and miss London and the southern part of England.

jamikins

I think you should definitely pick 2 regions and actually see and enjoy the sites there. Running around trying to see more places usually means seeing less of the sites and more of the transit.

janisj

Way too much IMO. Sorry - but 2 nights in London is a real waste of time/money. It will only give you about 1.5 days in the city and your friends heads will likely be spinning trying to see anything in that short a visit. I sometimes stay in London only a few days -- but I've been there countless times. For a first visit it takes a couple of days just to get comfortable getting around on the tube and see maybe a couple of major attractions.

I'd save the $$$/£££ and skip London unless you can give it more time.

Edinburgh and the general Bath area could fill your time . . . Or Edinburgh and London.

annhig

i too fail to see the point of flying to London just for 1 1/2 days sightseeing. ditto going to Bath for the same period of time and "using it as a base" - you'll hardly have had time to see what Bath has to offer in that time let alone to see other places round about. and Cornwall is definitely not somewhere that you can fit into 2 nights - you'd barely have got here before it was time to leave.

Given that your friends want to see London, and by the sound of it you don't, i think you have a choice; either come to London with them and possibly go and see other things whilst they see the stuff you've already done [you'll hardly run out of new things to see] or you go to Bath [or Ireland or Cornwall] and they do London by themselves.

If I were them, I'd be pretty cross spending only 2 nights in london just because my travelling companions only wanted to be there for a day or two.

SandraLB

Thanks for all the suggestions. We've narrowed the trip somewhat but are still cutting it close. Plan is to fly from US to Edinburgh (2 nights) to Perth area (2 nights with a day of golfing at Carnoustie). Train to London (3 nights) then fly to Cork (4 nights). Maybe we should skip Edinburgh entirely?

Any recommendations regarding train or flying to London. Appears the train would be 8 hours so really a total waste of a day no? As I stated before, I'm planning with a couple that have never been to Europe so we're covering a lot of territory.

janisj

Why Perth for Carnoustie? Perth is an hour from Carnoustie.

Perth really isn't somewhere I'd stay on such a short visit . . . and ESPECIALLY at the expense of Edinburgh. There is Scone Palace and it is a nice city - but to spend 30% of your very short time in the UK makes no sense to me.

You can take a train from Edinburgh to Carnoustie (well, to Dundee and then change trains or take a cab to Carnoustie)

Where did you get that a train to London takes 8 hours??? The overnight sleeper train does but a daytime train takes a little over 4 hours.

Leaving Edinburgh on an early train you'd be in London before lunch time.

I would seem to me the best option would be to add one night to Edinburgh and one night to London and do a day trip from Edinburgh to Carnoustie for the round.