Please sign in to post.

London, Glyndebourne Opera Festival, South Coast

Posted by (Bellevue) on

Planning solo trip in August. Public transportation only.

Arrive August 19 and depart August 29. After arrival at Heathrow, I'm going to Kingston upon Thames so I'll be close to Hampton Court Palace which I'm planning to see on the 20th. My performance at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival is the next day and I need to be in Lewes by around 1:30. I could travel from London that day for the performance and then come back but I think I'd like to consider traveling to an interesting location on the south coast for 3-4 days before returning to London for the remainder of the trip.

For those having attended the Festival, should I perhaps spend the night of the performance in Lewes, and then go somewhere else on the coast? Or is there somewhere fairly close where I can visit the cliffs and view some other interesting sites?

One other question. Found I nice single room in Westminster, very close to Covent Garden. Should I have any concerns about staying here as a solo, 68 year old woman? Any other area suggestions that might put me near one of the many parks as it will be August and lovely to be near gardens of some kind?

Thanks.

Posted by
311 posts

I'm not sure that there are any South Coast locations where I could recommend 3 to 4 days of sightseeing. There are a number of places that would be interesting for a day - eg Lewes itself, Brighton, Arundel, Chichester (and the Roman Villa at nearby Fishbourne) but then you have a problems of moving hotels or finding something to do with your baggage.

I don't know any reason why the hotel you're thinking of would be a particular problem for a solo woman. Like all big cities, London has a problem with pick-pocketing and mobile phone theft but otherwise it's probably safer than most similar places (no guns, for a start). Does this room have air-conditioning? This is not a given in the UK and August can be hot and humid and there isn't much breeze in Central London.

You are in the UK during summer school holidays, so expect any tourist site popular with children to be very busy. Also, Monday 25 Aug is a public holiday. Most, if not all, attractions will be open but again things will get busy.

Posted by
9528 posts

The problem is that I would imagine that Lewes got booked up a long time ago, and I see the opera finishes at 8.25pm.

If you came back to London you would arrive back around 10.30 to 11pm which is fine.

The trains from London continue to Hastings via Eastbourne, so my inclination would be to look in either of those towns- probably the former. Eastbourne is 20 minutes on, Hastings 50.
From Eastbourne it is a bus ride to Tunbridge Wells. We have a lady on the forum, Betsy, who has just spent a month in Tunbridge Wells.
The cliffs are easy to access from Eastbourne, you could one day take the half hourly train to Hastings and Battle. Another day the train the other way along the Coastway to Brighton, Fishbourne and Chichester.
You could easily do several days down there.
Change at Hastings and Rye is easy enough to reach for a day trip.

Add Reply

Please do not reply to violations of our Community Guidelines.