willit

Battle (The site of the battle of Hastings) is quite pleasant. There is an audio tour of the battlefield and Abbey, and in summer, English Heritage often do displays and Reinactments.

I agree with the others though - If after an historical and religious trip to the South Eastern part of the UK, the Cantebury and Dover would make more sense (The Castle at Dover could easily take an entire day).

I'd also second <s>Davi</s> Audere's suggestion of Winchester as a Daytrip.

cgf77

I couldn't figure out how to respond to each message but I would like to thank all of you. We have our itinerary almost finished. We will stay in London 8 nites &amp; daughter will be doing research at Nat'l Archives &amp; some other places while her Dad &amp; I will visit some sites. Dau has several places she desires to see &amp; we will go with her (even tho we've seen before). We have decided to lv London by train &amp; go to Maidstone &amp; stay 3 nites. Dau will search for records &amp; we can go to Canterbury &amp; Hastings &amp; maybe Dover. We might get brave &amp; rent a car!

Then, take train to Bath &amp; stay until day we leave at Gatwick or day before &amp; stay @ hotel at Gatwick (not sure how far Bath would be, etc.)

We are planning to use buses instead of the tube while in London.

We still are not clear how many days we should buy the train pass as we will need it for London to Maidstone, Maidstone to Bath &amp; Bath to Gatwick.

cpezc

I have to jump in here in defence of Hastings. I don't think that theses people have been to Hastings any time recently. There is a new and very fancy glass train station. It takes 1.5 hours to London and the trains are also all new. There are no traqsportation issues, nor are there are not any junkies at the station! They have moved from Hastings years ago after a massive clean up operation.

The old town in Hastings is one of the most beautiful untouched historical towns in England. The views from the West and East Hill attest to this, and the massive West hill country park is beautiful, as is the impeccibley kept St Helens Park.

I am quite sure that the people on this thread have never explored Hastings, and are only going on heresay from people who may have visited the new town of Hastings (not the old town) years ago. It is one of the greatest success stories of the past ten years. Norman Foster has designed a new glass eafront promenade, and building work starts in 2007. It is telling that property prices have trebled since 2000.

Daisy54

I visited Battle and Hastings on a previous trip to England and enjoyed them quite a lot. I am a big British history buff and the Norman conquest is my favorite era. I was really surprised to see someone dismiss the Battle of Hastings as small - it may have had less participants than a 20th century conflict, but its significance in English history and culture was astronomical. We did it as a day trip from London, and also relied on public transport. My mom and I took the train to the town of Battle and explored the site of the Battle of Hasting and the ruins of the abbey. We looked around the town a bit and had lunch in a pub called the 1066, of course. Then headed back to the train staiton and continued on to Hastings (about 20 minutes). We didn't have time to explore the town itself, I wanted to see the ruins of the castle. My traveling partner (Mom) is elderly and not very fit so we took a taxi from the train station up to the top of the cliff. It's true there's not much left of the castle, but there is a Norman style tent where they show a video about the Norman conquest and the views from the cliff top are awesome. Then the nice man at the entrance called us a cab to take us back to the train station to return to London. I waas able to get my Norman history fix, see a lot of impressive sites in one day, and do it all without a car.

I'm still hoping to work out a visit to Glastonbyr on soem futre trip t England, I hope.