Hello! My first post here. Welcome your thoughts as to our general plan. We have largely though not entirely sorted out how much time to spend at each place, doing our utmost to avoid checking a bag. My partner and me will depart Toronto to spend 18 days in England and plan to travel by train, and bus when needed. I’ve spent some time looking into train and bus travel so am not completely unaware of how they work.
Our trip is evolving into a combination of visiting national and international treasures, and visiting sites related to our family histories. We are trying to not plan every day, all day, leaving some flexibility for unpleasant weather, our gumption and energy levels, etc.
Right now the only firm commitments are flight arrival and departure dates/times, a hotel in Bath is booked, and attending a play in Bath the evening of October 9. We arrive Heathrow at around 11:30AM on Tuesday Oct. 7th. Our thinking is to take the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station then train to Bath, arriving around 4:00PM (we hope!) when we finally give in to the inevitable need to sleep, and staying for three nights at the Z Hotel. We expect Wednesday to be a recovery-and-swinging-in-to-the-different-time-zone day.
Apart from the play we are considering a walking tour, seeing the Baths, the Abbey, possibly Stonehenge and/or Avebury (although we may do this later, from London).
After that we currently plan on going to Cardiff for two or three nights, leaving Bath around mid-day or early afternoon. One branch of my family hails from nearby; am looking into whether any traces of my family remain there and if so whether a day trip by train is worth the time. If not, then we could pass entirely on Cardiff.
It seems that using a one day of a BritRail pass to travel the 90 minutes from Bath to Cardiff is not cost effective. Thoughts?
We then plan on leaving Cardiff the morning of Monday the 13th and going to York, staying for three nights/two full days. Nothing specific planned or lodging selected yet; evensong at the Minster is highly recommended by a trusted advisor.
My partner has some family origins near Wooler in the far northeast, north of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and off train routes. So probably take the train to Berwick-upon-Tweed which is nearest where we would want to go, then would need to take a bus to Wooler and stay for 2-3 nights.
We’d return to London on the 19th and would have four full days - 20th-23rd - to sightsee. High on the list: Churchill War Rooms (probably a must for me), Kew Gardens, The Tower, the British Museum, the Eye, the Imperial War Museum, and one or more markets. As mentioned earlier we may decide to take a tour of Stonehenge and Avebury from here - we understand that would be an all day trip and a costlier one than from Bath.
Look forward to your comments, welcome any recommendations for preferably lower-cost lodging in York, London probably near Paddington/Marylebone (and Wooler if anyone has been there) and engaging. Thanks in advance!
andrew