London / Paris Trip

Re 5), treat yourself to a sleepover in Caen or Bayeux, so you can take a proper D-Day Battlefields tour. Instead of trying to cram it in as a day trip. You'll be glad you did.

Kent, I should clarify that we will be spending 3 nights in Bayeux. I meant is it doable to travel from London to Paris to Bayeux in one day. Thanks for your input.

1) Matlock Bath is a spa town in Derbyshire. Bath Spa is the one you probably want.

4) PAYG Oyster travel has a cap that limits you to the cost of a daily Travelcard. However, this can still be quite high if you are travelling out into the suburbs, and a higher maximum rate is charged if you travel before 9:30 am on Mon-Fri. Check fares on the TFL website, but paying for a weekly Travelcard through the London Pass may be cheaper. Or, if the price with the London Pass is inflated (as it might be) you could purchase a weekly Travelcard separately when you arrive in London. Apart from Windsor, which is completely outside the Travelcard/Oyster area, all the sites you mention are within Zone 1.

5) Train is pretty much the only option as there are no long-distance buses in France. It may be cheaper and or quicker to get off the Eurostar in Lille and take a train from there to Bayeux. Compare the Lille-Bayeux and Paris-Bayeux fares at www.capitainetrain.com and buy your ticket 90 days in advance. I don't think there is any difference in fares on Eurostar now between London-Lille and London-Paris. You may have to transfer in Lille between the Lille Europe station where the Eurostar calls and the older Lille Flandres station where some domestic trains call, but it's a short walk or tram ride. Changing in Paris does mean you don't need to change stations, as the Bayeux trains leave from Gare du Nord.

Philip, thank you for your response but now I need a bit of clarification. I have been looking at some older threads and now I am a bit confused. I thought if we took the Eurostar from London to Paris (Gare Du Nord) we then had to transfer to the St Lazare (SNCF) train station????? I have also read conflicting threads on how far away the St Lazare actually is...One person said a 5 min walk another person said it was 3 miles away and you need to take a cab...also said traffic can be bad so allow lots of time. Would you be able to clear this up for me? Also, I did check the fares from London to the Lille and it appears to be the same cost, though they did not go out as far as October. Thank You!

London to Paris to Bayeux definitely doable in one day. St Lazare (where train to Bayeux leave from) is not terribly far from the Gare du Nord, where your train from London arrives. Transit time between the two about 1/2 an hour - either a walk to one RER line then a walk, or transfer between two Metro lines, or a simple taxi in between the two.

Here's some info on transferring between stations in Paris from the always reliable Man in Seat 61:

http://www.seat61.com/Paris-metro.htm#.VSWMbTSUfrA

Also consult Paris by Train website, which also includes photos of the relevant stations so you can orient yourself a bit before ever setting foot in one!

http://parisbytrain.com/

p.w. for recommendations for lodging in Paris (or Bayeux), you should really make a separate posting in the France forum. You'll get more responses and more attention to that part of your question.

Thank you Kim, those sites are very helpful. And you are absolutely right...posting questions about Paris on the England forum isn't the best idea, not sure what I was thinking!

Karen - no worries. Of course it's logical that you put your whole trip up here and posed questions about it. Just a thought that if you put the Paris/Normandy questions up in the France section, they'll get more attention.

Yes, sorry, I was getting mixed up with Beauvais. As stated, the quickest way from Nord to Saint Lazare is to take RER line E from Magenta station which is very close to Nord (not the main RER entrance in the station itself for Lines B and D).

Kim and Philip, thank you both very much. I have pulled up the websites and now that I can visually see the map it does not look hard at all. Thank you to everyone once again this site is awesome!

Loved my Mad Max Tour. I did the full day Stonehenge/Avebury/Lacock/Castle Coombe tour. The other tour company from Bath (Lion Tours, I think) seemed very comparable. They had a small bus like we did and were at most of the same sites. And the people on the tour seemed happy.

Regarding travel to Bath- I also took the National Express From Heathrow and found it to be very convenient. Bath Spa is the name of the train station so you will not find that name on a bus schedule.

But the two are right next to one another. I don't think there is a name for the Bath bus station. Just pick the destination as "Bath" and that will be the right one.

Thank you for the information Kristen. I am pretty sure we are going to take the all day Mad Max Tour....LOL...I am glad you enjoyed yourself because one of the reasons I wanted to take the tour was because it was "Mad Max."

And the owner's name is Maddy with a dog named Max, lol. I did the full day tour in 2013 and really enjoyed it. The driver/guide was very good...his day job during the week was teaching.

I don't know if you have chosen lodging in Bath or not. I stayed at The Kennard and LOVED it. Oh my. My room was gorgeous and the breakfast was wonderful. It's an old Georgian row house. I do see there are new owners from when I stayed there though. I think that must have happened recently as I have looked at the website in the last couple of months trying to work out a trip in Sept. and did not notice that. However, it could be user error, lol.

For London I have also stayed at Lime Tree and liked that as well.

OMG! Now I get the name :) Love it! No we have not chosen lodging so I will take a look at the Kennard. Thank you for that tip!

I did a similar trip just this March. You don't need to get a full 6-day London Pass to see those sights. You just have to plan efficient use of time and you could get by with a 2 or 4-day pass - much cheaper. With a 2-day, we saw Westminster Abbey, Churchill war rooms, Windsor, and Tower of London.

It's good to have the pass mailed to you so you don't have to travel to Leicester Square just to pick it up. They don't open until 9:30 or 10:00, which delays you starting a sightseeting day. But you can pick it up well before the days you use it, since you may be in the area at National Gallery/Trafalgar Square.

We also got the 7-day travelcard, which comes on the Oyster Card. Sadly, I forgot to turn in my Oysters at St. Pancras when leaving for France to get the 5 quid deposit back.

Flights from the US to London generally arrive in the morning. We used Londonconnection.com and stayed in a flat near Piccadilly Circus. This was extremely convenient putting so many sights within walking distance. Sounds like a nice long trip!