Hi All - we just returned from our 2 week trip to England. January 1 - 15th. I wanted to thank everyone for all the great advice. Here is what we did and our reviews.
First 4 days we stayed in London at a quaint apartment right in the center of a great area—lots of places to eat and centrally located to the Tube and other great attractions. HINT - be sure to ask your accommodations about whether or not they have a lift and how many flights of stairs to your room! In England the floors start at floor 0, so we stayed on the 5th floor, which was actually the 6th! Narrow windy staircase and of course we packed too much! But the flat was amazing and I would highly recommend it. Air BNB - Covent Garden Studio - Netflix & Nespresso.
London is very busy, even in January. It was also a bit overwhelming, but we did manage it well. The Tube and the Trains are pretty easy once you get there, and if you get on the wrong train, don't worry, just hop off at the next stop and redirect! Or go explore somewhere you weren't planning on going to! LOL
We went on the Bath - and we were only supposed to stay 4 nights, then move on to Oxford. But, we fell in Love with Bath. We stayed at the Bath House. The hosts were amazing, even did our laundry for us! We ended up commuting to Oxford and back to London as well. This decision saved us $700 in lodging. Bath is a wonderful little city, very friendly and great places to eat and shop. Unfortunately, the Thermal Spa was closed for cleaning and repairs, but we saw everything else.
Against the advice of several people here, we did go to Stonehenge and the Cotswold's. We booked an all-day tour with Rabbies Tours. I highly recommend this operator. Very professional, funny, and strived to make sure we had a great experience. We were a small group of 10 people and had a very nice comfortable Mercedes van to travel in. We went to 2 towns in the Cotswolds - Lacock and Castle Combe. Just long enough to want to come back in the summer and see it in full bloom!
Took a day trip on our own to Windsor Castle - Again - so worth the trip. You don't need to book a tour - jump on the train from London and spend the whole day there. Go into Eaton as well and walk around the town appreciating the College. We did go back to Windsor on our last day to spend the night before we departed back to the US. It was nice because the Castle was closed that day, so the crowds were minimal. We saw the Royal Family returning to the Castle which was kind of cool. Not sure who exactly was returning as the windows were darkened, but it still was pretty cool. On our last night, we ended up staying in Eton - Gilbey's Bar & Restaurant. Great place, right across the bridge from Windsor and a great location. The place has a lot of history and the pub was wonderful!
Day trip on our own to Blenheim Palace. This was amazing! Well worth the excursion.
Another day trip and booked a tour through the Bodleian Libraries. Our guide was great! It was a small group, and as people dropped off, he actually took my husband and me around for another hour and showed us more history of Oxford, This was on his dime, so we did tip him well for the private tour!
We did a couple more day trips to London to see more. We did a full-day walking tour of London, which I was disappointed with. Our guide was knowledgeable but didn't read the crowd very well and spent a lot of time talking about things that no one was interested. You can pretty much do a walking tour yourself and see everything we saw but at your pace. We also did a Harry Potter walking tour which was fun and entertaining, and a nice way to see the south side, but again, you can probably do a tour on your own. I would also recommend a Historic Pub Tour! There are so many really cool pubs with incredible history in London!
So London in January - definitely worth it! very few crowds. TY Everyone!