Cathinjoetown

Your last post sounds fine. I personally would spend all of day 2 in Bath but I like what it has to offer. Pushing on to Oxford as you propose will work as well if you don't have time for a full day in Oxford.

PalenQ

Salisbury is one of England's very nicest cities - sublime cathedral - and take time to walk along river south of town to capture the unforgettable view of cathedral spirals and towers looming high above lush meadows - a seen several famous painters put on canvass- very very famous view.

janisj

>>early morning London to Salisbusry to Stonehenge to Salisbury to Bath mid day

Overnight in Bath

Day 2: around 11-12 noon: Bath to Oxford; return to London in evening.<<

Not a great idea IMO. You will not get to Bath anywhere near mid day. So just stay in Bath and head to London the next afternoon/early evening.

annhig

JJ - great minds!

here4now

While I am sure Salisbury is a beautiful city, no we were not planning on spending much time there. We were only going because it was a connection to get to Stonehenge. A connection that we cannot avoid.

JanisJ, I am confused-- you told me in an earlier post that arriving mid-day in Bath was totally doable. With this scenario, I was just not returning to London that evening. It seemed I was adding slightly more time by adding the overnight in Bath. Am I missing something?

Thanks

here4now

Maybe I should rephrase the question instead of coming up w my own idea:

If we are staying in London, is there a away to tour Bath, Stonehenge and Oxford in two days? They can be seperate day trips or combined.

janisj

>>JanisJ, I am confused-- you told me in an earlier post that arriving mid-day in Bath was totally doable.<<


I haven't read all the way back - but I <i>think</i> that was after taking the very early morning Inner Access group tour and then taking the train yourselves on to Bath. Otherwise, I think I said you wouldn't get to Bath until after 2PM


>>If we are staying in London, is there a away to tour Bath, Stonehenge and Oxford in two days? They can be seperate day trips or combined.<<

The biggest problem is Bath is a full day trip and Oxford is a full day trip . . . and you want to fit in a side trip to Stonehenge. But yes, if you really must you could. <u>Early</u> AM drive to Stonehenge arriving at opening time, then drive on to Bath for the afternoon/evening. This would save you more than an hour getting to/from Stonehenge by the local bus. You could leave directly from the Stonehenge Car Park. Next morning drive to Oxford (visiting Lacock en route). You could drop the car at Oxford and train back to London or drive back to LHR, drop the car and tube into London.

Normally I recommend collecting a car at LHR but leaving very early AM it would be easier to collect the car IN London like near Marble Arch. Then drop it at either Oxford or LHR. Just make sure the London location is open in the early AM.

annhig

you could do it by car as JJ suggests, but IMO it's still very rushed.

personally I would do Salisbury, Stonehenge and Bath on one [overnight] trip, and Oxford on another day trip.

janisj

>>personally I would do Salisbury, Stonehenge and Bath on one [overnight] trip, and Oxford on another day trip.<<

Ditto

Instead of smushing a 3 day trip into essentially a little over 1.5 days.

here4now

We are back from our wonderful trip (made better thanks to all the advice). On this topic, I just wanted to let you know what we did. We did end up taking two separate day trips. On the first, we left London on a 7:50 train to Salisbury, hoping to make it to Bath but deciding to just see how we felt as the day progressed. When we got to Salisbury, we immediately got on bus to Stonehenge. Spent about an hour and 45 minutes to two hours at the site. You really are able to get pretty close to the stones--much closer than I expected. We walked around, took tons of photos. Explored the visitors center and gift shop. We enjoyed the bus ride through the country side to get there and back. We did not get out at Old Sarum. We got off bus in center of Salisbury, went to Cathedral, toured it and saw the Magna Carta. Grabbed very quick bite to eat at cafe. Took about a 15 minute walk back to train station. Went to Bath via train. Saw more great countryside, including two chalk hillside figures--which was on our wish list but we did not think there would be away to see them without taking a tour! So a great surprise for us! Arrived in Bath, got some ice cream and watched a street performer in a square near the Baths. Next visited Roman Baths and Abbey. Spent about 3 hours between the two. We then vsited shops, walked around the town and river area and had a nice dinner.

At that point, we could have done more --in particular a hop on/off tour would have served us a well to at least get an overview of the rest of Bath. But, I had twisted my ankle while in Paris and while I did not let it stop us, it was swelling quite a bit from all the walking. Also, a lot of the stores were closing earlier then normal because it was a bank holiday. (Although we noticed that many many stores throughout our trip closed at 5:00 no matter what day). So we decided to call it a day. We arrived back in London around 10:00.

Did we get to see all of Bath? No, not even close. But this at least gave us a taste of that city, and we have no regrets at all about going. I think we were in Bath for about six hours. But we, despite my ankle issue, are power walkers. While we spent as much time as we wanted at each site, we wasted no time getting from point a to b. Plus, we had those bonus chalk hillside figures! I think our day was a great option for people who are similar to us and do not have a full day to devote to Bath. We had a very cool amazing day! Loved the ease of train travel!

On a side note, we could indeed have gone to Oxford that night. But we would not have arrived until around 10:00--which would have been a little late to arrive in a strange city from my perspective. But for others, maybe it would have been fine.

So we took a second day trip to Oxford. We got a relatively late start that day--not getting there until just before noon. Spent a wonderful day exploring the colleges and the city and spending way too much tourist dollars. Oxford is a beautiful city with tons of nooks to explore and for a Harry Potter fan there are many filming locations to visit. We did take a 1 hour tour that included Duke Humphrey's library but otherwise, we explored on our own. We were back to London around 9:30 that night.

Thanks for everyone's input--all that knowledge you shared empowered us to try and for us, it was fantastic!

nyse

I love it when travelers report back -- some posts are like reading 9 out of 10 chapters of a book. Nothing like a nice summary - so thank you.

Kathie

Thanks for reporting back!

annhig

yes, thanks herefornow.

it's not necessarily the trip some of us would have planned but it sounds like it worked well for you, which is the main, in fact the only thing that matters.

Sassafrass

Thanks for reporting back. Sounds perfect!