My husband and I will be in England in mid-September, 2005. We will be based in London most of the time and taking day trips from there. We are going to spend a few days in Bath and wanted to take a day trip to Hay-on-Wye from there. We won't be driving so will need public transport. Is Hay-on-Wye doable from Bath on trains? From what I have found on Britrail we will have to take a train to Hereford and then a bus to Hay-on-Wye. Would a private tour car be a better idea? I'm open to any ideas on this. Thanks for your help.

If you've got the money to hire a car and driver for the day, that would certainly be the best. It would give you the opportunity to take some interesting scenic routes and perhaps give you time to visit Hereford cathedral.

I have taken the train to Hereford and transferred to the bus that goes to Hay. It is an easy transfer, perhaps a 5 minute level walk. As I remember, the schedules did not align too well, so there was a fair wait. That was a disadvantage to me, carrying luggage, but it may be an advantage to you, to get to see a bit of Hereford.

The British government's new web site of travel information is on www.transportdirect.info and gives journeys by train, bus and car. Try it to see what options it suggests.

Thanks so much for your quick replies.

Ron, We love walking and wouldn't mind checking out Hereford while we wait for the bus. I just want to make sure of connections so we don't get stuck somewhere trying to get back to Bath in the evening.

GeoffHamer, Thanks for the website. I'll check it out.

It's probably never happened before.

But GeoffHamer's slipped up on a question about transport. transportdirect.info no longer provides any information about buses. It provides (infuriatingly unhelpfully) information about coaches. Which isn't the British for bus, but the British for long-distance bus. Which Hay on Wye isn't served by.

Bus timetables from Hereford to Hay are at http://herefordbus.info/xephos.php?t...l&show=all

If Britrail (what is Britrail, BTW?) tells you the train times, you'll have seen it's 2-2.5 hrs each way to Hereford from Bath and it's a further hour each way on the bus. If you drove, it'd be about 2-2.5 hrs each way door to door.

The train doesn't really let you see anything - except Hereford Cathedral - on the way. It's doable, and you'll have ample time on the way back to start making inroads into the books you've bought - even if you've very little time for browsing. Though personally, I'd no more take public transport to a book town than to a supermarket: what's the point of going all that way unless you intend buying more books than you can comfortably carry and give yourself at least six hours to look at at least a couple of the shops?

But driving lets you see the Wye Valley, and splendours like Tintern. It's plain perverse to rule driving out.

Flanneruk is right. Transport Direct doesn't offer any journeys by public transport to Hay-on-Wye, and merely calculates a journey time by car. However, it does give journeys by bus in some cases: if I enter my mother's postcode in Dorset, for example, it gives the schedule for travel by local bus to the nearest bus stop. Other European countries are much more advanced and the German web site www.bahn.de gives journeys within Germany by train, bus and boat.
For travelling to Hay-on-Wye in September, no schedules by train or bus will be available anywhere yet, but the current train schedules will give a good idea of how to get to Hereford, then you have the option of a bus or taxi to Hay-on-Wye.

Getting back shouldn't be a problem. The last bus leave Hay at 4;57 pm, arriving in Hereford at 5:59 pm. Train to Bath leaves at 6:47 pm, change at Newport arrive Bath at 8:33 pm. There are a couple of later trains from Hereford, so there is lots of lee way if things go wrong or if you satay later in Hay and taxi to Hereford.

Thanks for all the info. Being that our main intent is to spend time in Hay on Wye going to bookshops, I'm beginning to see that public transport may not be the best way to go. Any ideas you may have on tour cars would be greatly appreciated. We have not yet tried our hand at driving in the UK and that is probably for the best.

Try Crystal Cars for a start, http://www.crystalcars.co.uk/bath_taxis.html It looks like they charge £20 per hour for personal tours. Which seems cheap; I would have guessed over £200 for an 8 hour day. I have not used them since this kind of travel is beyond my budget.

Hereford Cathedral would be worth going to if you do get the opportunity; I am absolutely NOT a cathedral visitor, but at Hereford there is a chained library (the biggest, I think) and also the Mappa Mundi. Maybe you could work it into your car tour? I would certainly recommend it

If your visit to Hay is anything like ours, you will want a car in which to deposit your newfound treasures, and won't be able to haul them all back on public tranport.