Wales
 

Hi, I'm planning my June-July trip about 14 days (16 total with flights in and out) and I'm all over the place (with changing my mind) so will get back to y'all with an itinerary soon. Initally wanted to do London (7 days incl side trips) / Amsterdam (2 days) / Paris inc side trips (5 days). Now I'm starting to think the day trips are more like a couple days and it might benefit us to stay a night here or there. I thought it would be nice to break up the cities and see some of the countryside charm Britain/France has to offer.

(Also, but not really for this discussion, my daughter really really wants to see Italy and I told her that we'd go on another trip but the truth is it's been several years of planning and saving for this trip that I'm reconsidering moving some things around. I feel like Italy needs its own trip to hit Florence, Rome and Amalfi Coast, Vesuvius, then pop over to Spain also).

Anyway, to get to the matter at hand, I was planning to fly into London and at some point wanted to visit Oxford/Cotswolds

My b/f's heritage is Welsh (no idea where exactly) but I thought it would be nice to sneak Wales into my trip. Planning to travel all by train. So maybe leave London one morning to visit Oxford for the day and head to the Cotswolds to spend a night. Spend the following day visiting a few of the smaller picturesque towns in the Cotswolds and then head to Wales at night to spend the following day there visiting one area, but where? Cardiff? We just wont have time to go North I don't think as I'm adding this in..

Wales is a big place so the logistics would be different depending on which part you wanted to see.

>>head to Wales at night<<? do you mean driving?

If you just want to get a whiff of Wales, I'd take the train from London to Cardiff and forget about trying to squeeze it in to essentially half a day enroute back from the Cotswolds.

You can easily take a train to Cardiff and back in a day . . . OR . . . stay the night and maybe visit Tinturn Abbey/Chepstow

your easiest way of doing this is to fly into or out of Bristol airport.

for example, fly into london, tour, train to Cardiff, hire car, tour south wales, return car to Bristol, fly to Paris. [or Rome for that matter].

IMO in 2 weeks you really don't have time to see more than 3 places.

Amsterdam is not 2 days if at least one of those is a travel day. Skip it if you can't afford to give it more time. Add that time so you can actually see a tiny corner of Wales rather than just a mad dash to rather unrepresentative city in it.
Fly from Bristol (or Liverpool if you decide to head north) to Paris.
Or spend all 14 days in England and Wales and actually experience some of it.
Paris, like Italy will be there for another trip.

JanisJ, I guess I was thinking if there was a town worth visiting in Wales that might be easy to get to by train from the Cotswolds, we could spend at least one overnight and a full day the next day in whichever Wales destination before heading back to London.

And hetismij2, I can do Amsterdam it two days flying in from London as it's a relatively short flight.

In theory that would work, but There is very little rail service in the Cotswolds. Mostly only on the far eastern side and on the far western side. The middle bits you'd want to visit . . . There are no trains.

Re amsterdam, Even a short flight eats at least half a day. By the time you check out, spend an hour getting to the airport, check in and fly, then getting to you Amsterdam hotel . . . You've shot at least 5 hours.

There is no obvious train link from the Cotswolds to Wales. You would be better doing Wales from London.

well, it's possible to tour the Cotswolds, drive to Bath, and then catch a train to Cardiff.

That would be one way of doing it.

But that would mean driving in Bath ;)

Usually not fun.

I just think you need to either drop the Cotswolds or drop Wales. Or do Cardiff as a day trip from London.

The Cotswolds are not an easy one day trip by train anyway. You'd have to take the train to someplace like Moreton in Marsh and then infrequent local buses from there to whichever village(s) you wanted to visit.

Oxford + the Cotswolds + Wales just ain't a two day trip. More like 4 or 5 days if you actually want to see anything. Three full days (4 nights) minimum.

is it such a big deal to drive to Bath Spa station?

Nah -- but I believe the OP is thinking of using public transport exclusively . . .

>>Planning to travel all by train.<<

Thanks janisj and - yes travel by train, not comfortable with the change of sides with my daughter with me, why risk it. Also, love the Tinturn Abbey/Chepstow suggestion

annhig, thanks for alerting me to the other Airport

I think I'm just going to plan the day trips out of London and getting closer to refining my sample itinerary before I post for y'all to rip apart :) Love these boards - all sorts of helpful planning tips! JanisJ, still following a post from you 3 years ago as I book my hotels lol.

We spent a good chunk of two days in Cardiff in June. Take a look at my trip report (toward the end) if you'd like more details on what we did there.
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...yjune-2014.cfm

Lee Ann

Lee Ann, thanks for the link! Loved the photos and comments :)

You're welcome! We had a great time.

Lee Ann