UK and France?

Just not sure if the France part is a good idea and/or how best to do it.

now that you have let the cat out of the bag with the family I guess you'll have to regardless.

You'll want to be back in London at least the day before your flight home. Too bad you can't fly home from Paris. Could you go to Paris and Normandy - I agree that a week is pretty good for both together - at the front of the trip?

Adding France and Wimbledon in mixes up the plan I bet.

When you say you are following the RS plan, they move pretty fast and you may not be able to keep up with a tourbus schedule. What does your current itinerary look like?

Let me guess... land and go straight to Bath... is that the one?

France week 1 or 4 would work beautifully and it is an easy train ride. “Worst” case you could just do 5 nights in Paris and skip Normandy

Nigel, yes on straight to Bath. The 3 week by car suggested itinerary. We've done Rick Steves itineraries with great success in other Euro countries -- Germany, Switzerland, Spain (last month). We skip the sites the kids won't like as much (they are 11 and 12) and then the allotted times work really nicely.

Personally, I would try to avoid France after 1 July, when places get much busier and far more expensive. England won’t have such a hike, as school holidays start mid July. If you can’t change your flights, I would try to get to France on day 1 or 2 and then take the Eurostar service to London. If you are hiring a car, at least you won’t be jet lagged at the start of the hire period.

Your children maybe different, but I didn’t enjoy Bath and the Cotswolds when I was young.

I'd suggest France at the beginning or the end, flying one way and taking the Eurostar train the other. That's how to minimize travel time under the circumstances. I'm assuming that you're in North America and will be using Heathrow Airport.

If it's your first week, fly from Heathrow to Paris (either airport) a few hours after your scheduled arrival. You may need to change terminals for this. After your Paris time return to London by Eurostar. Or, if you're in Normandy, look for a flight to any London airport from someplace like Caen.

If it's your last week, take the Eurostar from London to Paris, then fly back to Heathrow (from Paris or elsewhere) to arrive a few hours before your homebound flight. Again, you may need to change Heathrow terminals. If your homeward flight leaves in the morning, it would be prudent to fly back from France the evening before and sleep in an airport hotel.

Look for options in Rome2rio.com. There's ferry service between Normandy and English ports, which might be fun for your kids but would take longer and could be cancelled if weather is bad enough. If you put France first, you might find a flight to Bristol, very close to Bath, where you could start your modified RS itinerary.

Going with the idea of the French week first: Flying immediately on to Paris might make for a crabby family. Instead, consider one night at the Sofitel attached to terminal 5 at LHR. They allowed us to check in early. After checking in (or at least stashing your bags), you can take the Picadilly tube to central London and spend a long afternoon exploring the area. Next day, fly to Paris.

If you want to explore a bit of France besides Paris, you could rent a car at CDG airport and do a loop over 2 or 3 days, then return the car and fly to whichever airport in the UK works best. The loop could be Les Andeleys (pretty town with a big ruined castle) - Rouen (cathedral, medieval center, Joan of Arc connections), Honfleur ( pretty little seaside town), Bernay (medieval interest), Vernon (Giverney gardens). We enjoyed all of those locations.

Be sure your Paris hotel is air-conditioned. Paris can get very hot and humid.

"Your children maybe different, but I didn’t enjoy Bath and the Cotswolds when I was young." (Thank you Jennifer for saying that.) We found those two locations "under-whelming" as adults. Bath - we enjoyed the Roman Baths, walked up and looked at the Royal Crescent, and were ready to leave. The Cotswalds are pretty, but the villages are very similar. Heresy, I know....

Thanks everyone who responded so far! This is all really helpful. I will look into the possibility of doing France week 1. A potential complication for that is that it would push us to London on week 2 of Wimbledon and I'd imagine the tickets are harder to get then. I had researched "The Queue" for tickets, which seemed like a pretty safe bet for getting something on the first few days if you arrive decently early. I'm not sure about later days, which I'd guess would be a bigger challenge to actually see tennis. We know from the U.S. Open in NY that the first days of a grad slam are really fun with so many matches happening all over the place that you don't need tickets to the main courts. That said, if I felt confident in getting in with tickets to main courts, week 2 has the advantage of better matchups. Maybe I should ask on another thread (or tennis forum) about week 2 Wimbledon tickets via the Queue.

The suggestions on reducing time in Bath and Cotswolds are helpful and reinforce what we were already thinking. We were considering skipping Cotswolds entirely. For Bath vicinity, the kids definitely want to go to Stonehenge and Avebury (and they have really liked the most comparable places to this we have visited elsewhere). They are also excited about King Arthur and Holy Grail stuff in Glastonbury/Wells, but have little interest in Bath itself. They also seemed not particularly interested in the Iron Bridge Gorge part of the Rick Steves itinerary, so we were considering cutting that too.

We all like outdoors and castles, so Northern Wales seemed appealing, but reading about recent mobs of people at Mt. Snowdon over Easter weekend, that is making me second guess whether that really feels like good outdoors experience or ruined by being overwhelmed with littering mobs. (There's a tradeoff. Mobs at Yosemite are fine because it is so amazing. And generally, if you hike more than 30 minutes from a road, people thin out.) We also were thinking we would spend more time than suggested by RS around Glencoe to do at least long "Scottish highlands" hike.

I'm also curious about thoughts on Loch Ness, which from the outside sure feels like the type of place people go mostly because others will ask if they went. My kids aren't pulled in by the Loch Ness monster stuff. Inverness has some pull but also tempting to skip all that and cut down from Glencoe through Stirling to Edinburgh rather than head any further north.

Also, even though my family has already been looking through the RS France book, if there was an alternative use of the 4th week that was enticing enough, they would consider it. The most obvious is to just slow everything down in UK, but I think they'd vote for 1 week in France over that.

Putting this all together, if we did Northern France first, I'm curious on thoughts on this plan: Follow Cynthia's advice to stay one night at the Sofitel at LHR while exploring London before flying to Paris -> visit Paris -> then rent car for Normandy -> then take the car via ferry from Cherbourg to Portsmouth -> then do UK itinerary starting by staying somewhere between Portsmouth and Stonehenge (maybe Salisbury?) rather than Bath -> then modified Rick Steves UK itinerary, eventually returning car in York before train to London for final leg.

Or would it be better to loop back to Paris after Normandy and then fly to someplace like Bristol (where we'd rent a different car)?

I believe taking car across would cost you a great deal more. I’d go back to Paris and fly (or train, depending on starting point) back to UK

Don't try to use the same car in both countries unless you can move the wheel and pedals from one side to the other. ;-) Plus it will cost a lot, and serve no useful purpose, to take it across the Channel by ferry.

You'll certainly be tired after an overnight flight to LHR, but it will probably be morning and you might as well just change to another flight to Paris, where you can walk around for awhile and then get the sleep you'll need. Why waste a night at the Sofitel before you're really done anything else? (It's a nice hotel, I've stayed there, but a better choice for the night before a morning homebound flight.)

Your discussion of Wimbledon logistics left me reeling. Not many here can help you figure out the competing variables you're trying to shoehorn into these four weeks: (1) A modified RS itinerary through Britain, (2) Having the best possible Wimbledon experience you can, (3) A week in France, including Normandy. My instinct tells me something has to give somewhere. You and your family can judge best what and how.

Thanks for feedback. Pretty clear my car on ferry idea is a bad one! (This type of feedback is what I like most about these boards!)

After talking this through with my family, we are converging on a plan, recognizing that there are tradeoffs and nothing is perfect. Likely to do modified RS UK itinerary with London and day at Wimbledon at the end of week 3, then Paris (perhaps with some Normandy part, TBD) in week 4. We recognize France would be better at front end, but my wife really wants to maximize chances of enjoying a day at Wimbledon, so I consider that tradeoff totally worth it. (If you are sports fan, going to an iconic venue has the long-term impact that you enjoy watching events there on TV immensely more for the rest of your life.)

It's been really useful reading suggestions on how to manage the France part from London. I appreciate all the thoughtful feedback and advice! If anyone has more to add, I'll keep reading and digesting. Thanks!

Putting this all together, if we did Northern France first, I'm curious on thoughts on this plan: Follow Cynthia's advice

I thought your previous post hit everything on the head and was wonderful - until I reread it and realized you had suggested taking a French car to Portsmouth. Don't do that. It will be so extraordinarily expensive you might have to sell one or two children. And hard to drive. Altogether a bad idea.

So easy to leave your car in Normandy, enjoy the ferry crossing, Brittany ferries make it enjoyable for the whole family, and hire a UK car in Portsmouth. Simples.

That SW19 is really getting in the way isn't it? But an iconic visit will be remembered for a lifetime, and strawberries and Pimms. Hope you get good weather. The Queue in the rain is less fun. Happy thoughts. And a happy wife is a joy forever (slight mashup there, sorry).

I bet we get this to work. I'm glad the kiddies have their hands in the pie. That'll make for for happy kids. Wow,, happy wife, happy kids - that'll make happy dad.

Don't try to drive on the wrong side with the wheel on the wrong side.

@Thanks…..we also are going to be in London during opening weekend and I also thought about a day at Wimbledon. What I found through searching Wimbledon forums…at this point in time my choice was to either buy tickets at an inflated price or ….the recommendations were to queue up by 4 am at the latest as some actually camp out to hope to be lucky enough to secure a grounds pass…..Neither of which I was willing to do.

So going forward if this is to be in my future I will plan this way before they get released in spring.

There are also day flights from some major USA cities that will get you into London at night. I then stay at an airport hotel to sleep off the jet lag and then I’m somewhat refreshed by the morning.

Rick’s tours are definitely going to be biased in favour of what you can from a tour bus. In the past, he’s been very light on urban areas in the north of England, Liverpool get a bit of Beatles coverage but there’s a huge gap otherwise.

I know I’ve mentioned that few of my U.K. friends have ever been to Bath. It does look like it’s a fun place for a couples getaway but that isn’t what you’re planning.

Update: We decided to forgo visiting Normandy. So, the plan is for a little over 3 weeks in UK followed by 5 days in Paris. All accommodations are now set, so we're pretty locked in for that plan and very excited. Thanks for all the advice!

glad it is coming together