Stopping point between London and Edinburgh
 

We are a family of four (children ages 14 and 11) traveling to UK June 27 - July 10. I rented a flat for us in London through Saturday, July 4. That leaves me five nights to play with.

I am looking for a place between London and Edinburgh to spend two nights and explore the immediate area. I'm not interested in doing a grand tour to pack in a whole bunch of sites. I was more interested in something more rural or seaside (after a week in London, I think we will want to be away from big crowds). We will be renting a car for this leg of the trip. I am leaning towards Northumberland and basing our stay out of Alnwick (Alnwick Castle, Hadrian's Wall, Holy Island). Any other suggestions?

You only have 5 night and presumably want to see at least a bit of Edinburgh -- so really not enough time to explore rural bits of England and drive all the way to Edinburgh . . . Just that drive eats up a 8-9 hours plus any stops. Assuming you want 2 full days in Edinburgh -- you only have 2+ days for anything in between and half of that would be in the car.

So my two suggestions would be:

• forget a car and take the train to York for 2 nights, then train on to Edinburgh

OR

• Fly to EDI, collect a rental car there and spend two full days exploring either the Trossachs (Inchmahome Priory, Stirling Castle, Falls of Dochart - maybe as far as Glencoe) or Fife (St Andrews, beaches, fishing villages), return car at EDI and spend the last 2 days in Edinburgh.

Me personally -- I'd choose the Trossachs+Edinburgh, but any of the 3 would be wonderful.

If you rent a car to travel from London to Edinburgh, a grand tour is the defacto result. While possibly not saving money, you will save a great deal of time and bother if you travel the longer stretches by train and pick up your car on arrival near your rural destination. In fact, you may not need a car at all if you narrow your choice of stopping off place to one with a train station.

So none of the ideas from your previous post appealed?
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...e-district.cfm

With a two-night stopover, you won't have time to do all that. It's a long drive from London, so you'll really just have the one day. Hadrian's Wall is pretty far south of Alnwick, so it would be backtracking to visit it as a daytrip from Alnwick, but you would hardly have time to see anything if you try to stop there en route to Alnwick.

You could perhaps stop for the two nights somewhere near the wall. That would have the double advantage of making the drive from London a bit shorter, and giving you some time to see the wall. Somewhere near Durham might be suitable, or maybe Hexham, a nice town very near the wall. Hadrian's Wall passes through very bucolic countryside, so it should suit your requirements.

After leaving the wall area, you could perhaps stop in Alnwick on your way to Edinburgh. I still don't think you'd have time to see everything you want to see.

elberko - aha. I searched for that original post and could not find it, so decided to start a new one. We ended up extending our time in London to a full week rather than the five days originally planned. This will allow us two day trips from London and more time to really explore.

I too have thought about taking the train directly to Edinburgh as the next base, but for some reason I feel drawn to the Northeast coast of England.

Is York generally crowded this time of year?

I'm gathering from the replies that my original driving idea is a bit unrealistic -- which is exactly why I'm on this forum.

Smbarton32, if you click on your name, all your posts will show up.

smbarton -- if you click on your name you can see your previous posts

I had the benefit of spending 3 years in the Midlands and did some of the things you mentioned as well as those suggested by janisj. Our kids were about your age as well. Just keep in mind that I did those over multiple trips

check out my old blog to have a look:

ukfrey.blogspot.com

There are 3 different Scotland trips including separate ones for the Trossachs and Fife, Alnwick/York and even some London ones even though you didn't specifically ask. Have a poke around and see if anything strikes your fancy.

The things I recommended on the original thread still would work:

>>Then train to York and stay two days. Then collect a car and visit Beamish open air museum, Hadrian's Wall, Alnwick Castle (they can have a quidditch lesson in the same place the the movie scenes were filmed) and other fabulous spots between York and Edinburgh.

Then finish up in Scotland.<<

or

>>• London 5 nights;
• take train to York - stay 1 night;
• pick up car and drive north -2 nights in Northumberland for Hadrian's Wall/Alnwick/the Coast;
• Then 3 nights in rural Scotland (your choice where exactly - but you really don't have the time to go very far north);
• drop off car and spend your final 2 nights in Edinburgh.<<

or

what I recommended on <i>this</i> thread . . .

York is always busy.

I'm assuming you will have a car for touring the north east as relying on public transport is going to be very time consuming.

Depending on where you are stopping in London, you may need to allow 6 hours plus solid driving plus stops to get to Alnwick. That is effectively a whole day.

Have you thought about taking the train to Newcastle and picking up a hire car there? Depending which train you catch, this will take just over three hours from Kings Cross to Newcastle. You could then do the Roman Wall that afternoon before driving on to Alnwick.

Housesteads, possibly the best of the Roman Forts is just under an hour's drive from Newcastle. There is good walking along the wall from here.

Spend a day exploring Alnwick with its splendid castle and award winning gardens. If there is time, also include a visit to the ruined Warworth Castle a few minutes away.

You will need to check on tide times for Holy Island so depending on when you plan to visit, this may be a non runner. Times can be found here.
http://orawww.northumberland.gov.uk/...holyisland.asp
The tide comes up very quickly so don't chance your arm as cars do regularly get caught by the incoming tide.

If Holy Island doesn't work out there is Seahouses and a boat trip to the Farne Islands or Bamburgh Castle.

Then drive onto Edinburgh which will take a couple of hours.

Thanks to all for the good advice. I am looking into all your suggestions right now.