Birthday Week in England

will you have a car or is it choo-choo and bus/coach?

We prefer to rent a car to have free roam. Sorry, I forgot that part.

Lots of choices. Probably no bad ones. We did a 2 week tour a couple of years ago plus have been to London multiple times. Two of our favors were the Lake District and Bath. Bath is a very walkable city with several interesting sights like the pump room, roman baths, Jane Austen museum, abbey, etc. It's also within easy driving of Stonehenge, cornwall , etc. The Lake District is lovely and more outdoorsy in the sights to see.

Not a great idea to drive after an overnight flight, especially on the "wrong" side of the road. And no point heading into London your first night if you don't want to spend time there otherwise. But from Heathrow, you could take an express bus to Oxford (confusingly called The Airline), spend your first night there, then get your car and drive into the Cotswolds, to Bath, to south Wales, or wherever. Or spend the first night in Windsor if that appeals, and drive on from there.

If possible, September would be slightly quieter than August once the schools return.

Personally, I wouldn’t head to the overrated, overrun Cotswolds.

You could take the train to York, have a couple of days in the city and then hire a car and explore the stunning Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors then head to Whitby on the coast.

Alternatively, if you want to spend less time in transit, explore the area between Arundel and Dover for castles, great scenery, many National Trust houses and gardens and plenty of history. Kent is known as the Garden of England.

North Wales is another possibility for castles and gardens, which could be combined with Chester or Liverpool. See the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, the Llangollen Canal, Snowdonia and Bodnant Gardens.

I'm not sure what you mean by villas, I don't expect that you mean excavated Roman villas. Maybe you mean stately homes, sort of National Trust style?

Tough to beat Wales for castles, certainly the sheer number and variety of states of disrepair. A fair few scattered through England but much further apart unless one happens to be where you are.

What kind of farms? Arable in the east, orchards in Kent and Herefordshire, deer in many places, cattle and sheep all over. If you want fields of wheat, East Anglia and Northamptonshire. Vegetables, East Anglia. Fens, Lincolnshire and East Anglia. (While on that part of the world you could do worse than a few days in or around Lincoln, it has a cathedral and a pretty good castle.

A bit more distant from London is the Derbyshire Dales and Yorkshire Dales - rugged countryside, plenty of sheep, Brimham Rocks, the sort of countryside you see on Open All Hours if you've seen that. Not many castles but lovely rocks.

So many choices.

Some don't like the Cotswolds. I do. Lots. Just a couple of castles but I rather like it.

Maybe the Tintern Abbey, Cardiff area. Tintern Abbey is about a 2.5 hours drive from Heathrow and would be a nice base to visit a lot of nearby places. The drive is generally easy except for any construction. I’ve made the drive a few times after overnight flights, but only you know if you’re capable of driving it. Near it are Coch, Caerphilly, Cardiff, White, Raglan, Chepstow, Grosmont and Skenfrith castles. Monmouth is nice for a few hours visit. Near Tintern, in Trelleck, are the 3,000 year old Harold’s stones. They’re worth a 10 minute stop. Across the border back in England, there’s Bath in you wanted to visit it. It would be crowded in August and I’ve read parking there is a pain. West of Tintern is Brecon’s Beacon national park. All the options mentioned by others are good ones. Enjoy trying to decide where to visit since there are so many nice places to chose from.