11 days in England

I would highly recommend a stop in Windsor. After visiting there on my first trip through England by car, I made sure to visit on my second trip. The castle is great to visit. Many of the streets around it are similar to what they were in Days of old.

Since you're going towards the Cotswold's and Bath, Windsor is along the way. If you have the same interest in history as I do, check out some of the parish churches in the Cotswolds cities.

York is one of my favorite cities with the added attraction for me of being able to view the Minster And other attractions from the city walls. Warwick is another beautiful castle town and should be situated between the areas you've mentioned.

Windsor is best done as a day trip from London.

For those areas west of London, you might consider one day guided trips from either Rabbies out of London or Bath or Mad Max Tours out of Bath.

I've taken one day tours with both companies and they were excellent. If you do a search of his forum you will see both companies are very popular. They are small van tours that hold up to 16 people so they are not some packed big bus tour.

York is easy to get to by train and getting around once there is easy.

Do you have 11 full days? Or 11 nights (10 days)?

If you have 11 nights, you would be spending 3 in London, leaving you 7 nights.

I might suggest some variation of

Head straight to York upon arrival: 3 nights (2 days and you’ll probably be tireder here)
Train to Bath: 4 nights (3 full days with one being a day tour to the Cotswolds and one a day trip to Stonehenge from here.)
Train to London: 3 nights

That’s a really fast trip for all there is to see in these areas. But it would be a sampler.

The easy, time and cost effective, way to build Winchester Palace into your itinerary is to route there on the London to Bath journey.

To do that you take the hourly Bath to Southampton train (takes 87 minutes), change for the 4x an hour 16 minute journey to Winchester, leave your bags at a stasher (or equivalent) then afterwards the 3x an hour train to Waterloo in fractionally over an hour.

The Bath to Southampton train routes through Salisbury (for Stonehenge)

To save a third on train fares buy a Two Together Railcard for £35

Do you mean Winchester Palace as in the Winchester Palace remains in London (Southwark to be precise).

Or something in the city of Winchester?

I was also wondering about Winchester Palace- the only one I know of is in London. Winchester does have a very nice cathedral.

This sounds like a nice trip. What sticks out to me is how far away York is from the rest of the places you are going which are concentrated more in the southwest. As much as I love York I would consider taking that out and just spending time in the southwest/Oxfordshire and adding Oxford instead. However I think what you have is doable in the time allotted. Good luck!

I wondered too about Winchester Palace.

As others have said, it’s in London not far from Southwark Cathedral and Borough Market.

Winchester (the city) has a lovely cathedral and also an old bishop’s palace otherwise known as Wolvesey Castle. Do you mean one of these?

Thanks for all the helpful hints. And, yes, I did mean Winchester Palace. I am printing all of these out and will cobble together some form of trip around these suggestions. And, again, thanks so much for taking the time.

Keep on travelin!

Ken and Karen Novak

I made a mistake. I have nothing against Wincestor or Wincestor Palace, but it is Windsor Palace that I was actually thinking of. Sorry for the error.

I made a mistake. I have nothing against Wincestor or Wincestor Palace, but it is Windsor Palace that I was actually thinking of. Sorry for the error.

You mean Windsor CASTLE!

Easy to do as a day trip on the train from London if you want to do it that way.

Winchester

Windsor Castle

York is one of our favorite cities! Assuming you're flying in and out of London I'd spend the 1st 2 nites in London, then go to York, from York to Bath thru Bristol, and then back to London for the last day before flying home. Alternately on arrival go directly to Bath, then to York, and finally 3 days in London.

Whilst I agree that York is a great place to visit, it is about 200 miles north of London. All of the other places you’re looking to visit are to the west or southwest of London and nearer.

I’d be inclined to leave York for another time.

I would take a Mad Max day tour of Stonehenge and the Cotswolds from Bath, so 3 nights there. 3 nights York. 5 days in London, including day trip to Windsor Palace.

Oxford Would be a great addition to the list - From the Cotswolds by car it is roughly a 45 min journey we stayed at the Cotswolds and visited Oxford for the day and from London by train it is roughly 80 min give or take.

In Oxford you can explore all the historic buildings of the oldest university in the English-speaking world, it has evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the second-oldest university in continuous operation globally and of course if you like harry potter you can visit where they was filmed.

Also near Oxford and the Cotswolds is Blenheim Palace the birth place of Sir Winston Churchill. If you go to Oxford there are also many walking tours you can take and i highly recommend doing that if you have a short time, it is a sure quick way to get a lot of information and visit the main locations in a short time. Believe it or not not one of the buildings / colleges have names outside and you will have no idea what they are or what you are looking at.

A tour we took when i visited recently was Oxford magic walking tours we all had a great time if you go check them out the guide was great https://oxfordmagictours.com/ The tours was very reasonable priced as well we did see other tours charging double and we visited all the same places. If you wish to visit Blenheim Palace they do recommend booking tickets in advance learn more about the palace on their official website. https://www.blenheimpalace.com/visitus/

I do hope this helps - Enjoy your time in England

Thank you all for taking the time to offer suggestions. It is, of course, greatly appreciated. I am printing all of these out so out of the replies we will put something together for ourselves. Again, much obliged....Ken and Karen Novak