My husband and I have booked tickets to London (Heathrow) at the end of March 2009 for 1 month (at this stage...could extend!) This almost coincides with our 10th wedding anniversary (May!). We have been to London before so don't need to stay too long, as much as we love it there!

We will be going to Liverpool for at least one football match (Anfield Stadium), early April, so would appreciate suggestions of things to do in or around the city and also where to stay there?

Hubby is desperate to get over into France for at least some of the time and so would love some suggestions of how to build the itinerary to include some of regional France!

Thank you for all your input!

drop by the tate is the obvious in the docks. Also check if the town hall is open for visitors has a great floor.

Hi AT - The budget airlines Easyjet and Ryanair fly from Liverpool to a number of places in France.

For details see:
http://whichbudget.com/en/cheapflights.php?from=LPL

www.easyjet.com
www.ryanair.com

Hope this helps ...

Steve

There is usually a Liverpool vs Everton match on close to Easter that coincides with Aintree Grand National. The city gets pretty full for that but there have been a lot of hotels built it might not be a problem. You would have a problem getting tickets if the derby match is on when you are here.
Also our clocks go forward 29th March when we loose an hour.

First of all, could you change your tickets to return from France? Alternatively, you could fly back to London or take the Eurostar from Paris to London. (For the latter, get your tickets early to save a lot of money.)

Do you plan to drive in France? That's the best way to see the French countryside. You just have to decide which part of France you want to see. Keep in mind the time of year. In general, farther south is warmer.

For example, you could fly Easyjet to Nice from Liverpool or RyanAir from Manchester to Marseille. Then explore Provence in spring and/or the Cote d'Azur.

As for where to stay in Liverpool, look at www.tripadvisor.com. If you want to stay in a B&B, www.smoothhound.co.uk has pretty complete listings.

Grand National 4th April.
Liverpool at home to Aston Villa 21st March
Away to Fulham 4th April
Home to Blackburn 11th April. No fixtures listed for 28th March.

Thank you very much to all of you for your suggestions! We have taken them all into consideration and welcome more on the idea of going north of UK, from London via Liverpool at some point, up to (or down to!) Scotland (and into France ofcourse!)

We have currently got a little bit of a crisis going on at the moment, so the trip itinerary is taking a back seat but will be checking to see what is happening on Fodors and will hopefully be back to planning asap!

Thank you again!

I'm not a fan of trying to cram too much in, and would be inclined to suggest you meander your way north to Liverpool, and then up the west coast of Scotland, then down the east to London and home OR

Get up to Liverpool, fly to Bergerac, spend some time in the South West and then fly back to London, rather than try to do all three.

If you tell us what you'd prefer, we can fill in the blanks.

Dear all Fellow Fodorites

Things have settled down a little (enough of everyone else’s issues!) and we are back in the business of organising our trip away!

A few things have changed since our last post.

Here is the updated itinerary:

Sat March 28 – arrive Heathrow……….stay awake all day to combat jet lag…..what suggestions of things to do to combat jetlag (ie.what to do to stay awake all day?!) on the first day and then for the next 3 days/nights??

Weds April 1 – London to Bruges (Brussells), stay for 3 nights. Where to eat? What to do in Bruges?

Sat April 4 – Bruges to Amsterdam, stay for 3 nights. Where to stay? Where to eat? What to do in Amsterdam?

We will then travel back from Amsterdam to stay with friends in County Kent, UK for 4 nights.

Sat April 11 Liverpool vs Blackburn, we hope to be at Anfield for this game (still waiting to hear if we have tickets for this) so will stay in Liverpool 2 nights if so. Any suggestions of where to stay? Where to eat? What to do in Liverpool for a night / day?

Monday April 13 to Friday April 17 is an unknown at the moment. Friends have suggested that we stay at Atlantic Heights B&B in St Ives, Cornwall. Also have suggested Victoria Guest House in Cambridge. Obviously they are in completely different places however we do have 5 nights to play around with.

Liverpool vs Arsenal play on Sat April 18, and again we hope to be at Anfield for this game (still waiting to hear if we have tickets for this game or the one the week before, April 11). If we get the tickets for this, we will stay in Liverpool for 2 nights this weekend. Any suggestions of where to stay? Where to eat? What to do in Liverpool for a night / day?

We will then have 2 nights to decide what to do with, Monday April 20 and Tuesday April 21 before having to meet friends in Sussex for the remaining time of our holiday!

Hope all of this is makes some sense and you have suggestions to make!

Thank you so much for your input and look forward to hearing from you!

Dear Aussie, this is a very idiosyncratic itinerary, and difficult to advise you on. You're obviously doing stuff because of your own personal circumstances, which is fine; but what do you fancy for those missing 5 days. A trip to Cornwall must be about the most awkward thing you could choose, but it's YOUR trip. What are the drivers for this bit of it?

You'll find information about what's on in Liverpool in April and lots of other visitor information on its official website visitliverpool.com

I'm not sure whether you're hoping to get tickets for both matches, or just one or the other. If it's both, you're going to spend an awful lot of time driving up and down the country and you probably couldn't have picked a worse week to do it, as 10-13 April is Easter weekend and the following week is school holidays. If you do end up being in Liverpool for both weekends, I'd suggest that unless you're really keen on visiting Cornwall or Cambridge, you stay in the north and think about the Lakes, Yorkshire Dales, Peak District or Wales instead.

Wherever you decide on, you'll need to get booking your accommodation pretty quickly, because good places are already starting to get full for Easter.

Presuming you intend driving, I'd also consider travelling up to Liverpool from Kent on the Friday, rather than leaving it till Saturday morning. The motorways will be packed both days - especially if the weather's good - but at least if you travel on Friday, you won't have to worry about missing the match.

Hi & thanks for the messages so far!
With regards to the Liverpool leg of the trip, our contact is pretty confident that we will be able to get tickets to one or the other matches....unfortunately we won't know until much closer to the dates. It makes it extremely difficult to plan our exact itinerary but it is very good to know about the easter weekend! Had not even thought of that!

We were planning on hiring a car once we arrived back fro Amsterdam and love the idea of spending some time in the Lakes District. We are both pretty active and would love to do some hikes....any suggestions as to what to do? where to stay? where to eat?

Have you considered taking a bus tour from London? I did it several years ago and it was excellent. It was a week long Paris and Normandy trip with Trafalgar Tours and I can thoroughly recommend it. It had several Aussie couples on it and we had a very good social life in the evenings. The tour guide was outstanding and he made the trip very interesting indeed. We did several of the chateaux in the Loire Valley as well as the Normandy beaches and cemeteries.Because the area was not too large, we did not feel rushed and the hotels and meals were excellent. There are several bus companies that do these types of trips - Globus is another one. Coming as you do all the way from Australia, I feel that this would be the ideal solution for you both.

I answered one of your other threads, I didn't notice this one, sorry. Search by clicking on your name or mine for my suggestions.

If you are only in Liverpool for the match you might want to stay out of the city & where you stay might depend on your next destination. Departing to the Lakes or North you might want to stay on a waterfront hotel or motel. Departing to Manchester, Chester & Wales or the South you might want to stay on Queens Drive or West Derby. Staying in the wrong location could add 30 - 45 minutes onto your trip.

Hi aussietraveller76, in Amsterdam we stayed at www.boogaardsbnb.com and loved it! Good location, ample food supplies and Peter was a very helpful and gracious host.

Can also recommend a vrbo property in Bruges (good shopping, do the bike along the river) if needed.

and also can recommend www.thewillowsmere.com in the Lake District.

For the Liverpool bit, I'd use Priceline aggressively. Our experience of this, BTW, has been painless, though I'd be interested in hearing other people's views or experience.

The city's had a building boom in the past decade - probably on a scale unmatched in the UK outside London since the 1950s. That's produced a raft of good quality chains, and a decent handful of major quirky places: some probably silly (like the Liner and the Hard Days Night), some loathed by practically everyone in the world except me and my dog (the Adelphi) and some really rather OK but a bit full of themselves (the Malmaison). It adds up to an awful lot of rooms at a time when demand's sinking.

No idea whether demand WILL sink this Easter, as it did (spectacularly) over Christmas, but since just about all Liverpool's Priceline hotels are within a comfortable and safe half mile walk of each other around the city's (gobsmackingly interesting, if you've got even the teeniest taste for architecture) centre, the easy way to find out is to put a silly bid onto Priceline then over the following days up it a bit.

Whether you end up at Jury's or the Radisson, or any of the other standard brands won't matter much. Most people would want to avoid the Adelphi, and the Marriott Liverpool South's miles away. If you can find a strategy for avoiding those two, Priceline's your best bet.