Arrive Heathrow, to Salisbury, or Winchester?

There is a direct bus from London Heathrow to Winchester departing at 11:00, 19:00 and 21:30 taking 1h 15m. There is also a direct bus from Winchester to Salisbury departing at 14:57 and 16:52 taking 1h 15m which means Salisbury doesn’t make a good day trip from Winchester. You can take a direct train from Salisbury to the Bath Spa station (1h): https://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/ & https://www.rome2rio.com/.

I'll just add that if you decide to modify the order of your destinations, there is a direct National Express coach from Heathrow to Bath that takes about 2 hours.

Definitely take a train between Bath and Salisbury whichever order you put them in.

I love both Bath and Salisbury with many multiple night visits and although I've visited Winchester I've not stayed the night there. Bath may be better during the week. Pre-covid many of the accommodations had a 2-night minimum on the weekend although you're going for 2 nights anyway so that's probably not a concern. Prices usually spike on the weekends as well.

Thanks for these replies. Pam could you say more about what you liked about Salisbury. Just would like to plan what we do a bit and allow enough time. Also how does it differ from Winchester?

We have been to both Winchester and Salisbury. Both have great cathedrals and historic cities. They are only about 40 miles apart, you could do both cities.

It is hard to pick one over the other. Winchester Cathedral is a bit more imposing but Salisbury was huge in the Ken Follett books.

Oh well, what I like might not appeal to you but here goes!

• Salisbury Cathedral is one of my favorite gothic structures. I love to walk thru, do a docent tour, go into the Chapter House to look at the really neat sculptures that are low and easy to see including the guy who looks like he has Bell's Palsy. There is one of the 4 remaining Magna Cartas located here. I always try to go to Evensong here as well. It feels more like the worship service it's intended to be rather than a tourist event which is what I feel when I attend at Westminster Abbey.

• The Cathedral in in the Cathedral Close which has several houses you can visit as well as the quite interesting Salisbury Museum which has a number of Stonehenge artifacts. They also have some interesting exhibitions at times but I"m not sure if anything is coming up for next spring or not. YOu can also visit Mompesson House and there is another one that is open for visits too but I can't remember the name right off hand (and am babysitting a 4 year old and a 1 year old, lolol!!)

• The church of St Thomas has a fairly newly restored Doom Painting. This was the church that was built for the church builders!

https://archaeology-travel.com/england/doom-painting-st-thomas-church-salisbury/

I also like to walk thru the water meadows and see the scenes on which Constable based some of his local paintings. Here is an All Trails website showing a route through town and over to Harnham, then back thru the water meadows.

https://www.alltrails.com/trail/england/wiltshire/salisbury-cathedral-and-water-meadows?u=i

I'll post a little more later when the kiddos have gone home!

I was a little puzzled by MaryPat's response, because the National Express coaches between Heathrow and Winchester are relatively frequent (about every 1.5-2 hours). I have used this service frequently. The buses are still listed, but the stop is now shown as Winchester St Catherines park and ride. This is a little out of town wih frequent local buses. to the town centre.

I would go straight to Winchester, spend the afternoon there visiting the Cathedral and the Great Hall.
Then go to Salisbury and stay two nights.
Then on to Bath.

As an alternative, you could spend one night in Winchester and one night in Salisbury, then on to Bath. I don't normally do one night stops, but it may work in this case. It would give you a little time in each place to walk around and enjoy the old interesting streets and buildings.

Some additions now that I've recuperated from having the great nephews!

• I have not looked to see if this is still available but I took a free walking tour thru the local Tourist Office several years before Covid and it was excellent. We had a substitute walking guide who turned out to be one of the top-notch guides from the area who has his own Stonehenge company so he was really, really good.

• If Stonehenge is of interest there is an excellent shuttle service from the City Center and the train station out to the stones run by the local bus company, the Salisbury Reds. It is called The Stonehenge Tour but to my mind it's not really a tour, but it does have a canned narration they play on the way out. On the way back they stop at Old Sarum which is worth the visit.

• If you have time/interest there you can also walk from Salisbury to Old Sarum which is about 2.5 miles one way.

Have fun!

Thanks so much everyone!
It sounds like it is not too hard to arrive at Heathrow and go directly to either Winchester or Salisbury if our plane is due in in the morning.