Hello fellow travelers, We're in the planning stages for a 3-4 week trip to England in 2019 and I'd appreciate some transportation advice. When would it make sense to take a train or bus, and when would it be better to rent a car? We've traveled on the continent by car and train but this will be our first trip to England. We are healthy and in our early 60's. We would also like to economize since this is a long trip.
Our tentative plans: I'd like to fly into Paris and spend a few days there, then head to Mont Saint Michal before arriving at Cherbourg on the coast. We have some family history at Cherbourg. From there we'd take a high speed ferry to Poole, England. Our next stops are Calne for 2 nights (also family history), which is 46 minutes (19 miles) east of Bath, and Bath itself for 3-4 nights. Would it make more sense to take a train from Poole to Bath, where we can walk everywhere, and then at the end of our time at Bath rent a car to backtrack to Calne?
From the Bath/Calne area we would head north to Blenheim Palace, Cotswolds villages, Stoke-on-Trent (china production), Chatsworth House (near Liverpool), Epworth (Wesleys), Hull (William Wilberforce) and possibly York. We may fly home from Liverpool or Edinburgh. Thank you for any and all advice you can offer on transportation and itinerary!
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London, United Kingdom
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You can get from Poole to Bath by getting a train from Poole to Southampton and then changing there to a Bristol service. It's a bit of an indirect route, though, and there might be a possibility by car that would pass through somewhere interesting.