Itinerary Feedback Please

Quit reading the host's books and branch out.

Britain: Combine Bath and Cotswolds into three nights, rob one night from London and have a go at Wales. Enter at the Severn, run the coast clockwise with major castle spurs and pop out east of Conwy.

France: After Amboise, go straight to Beaune and spend a few hours and a nigh and be done with the damn place. Use the saved days anyplace else in southern France or plug them in to the Scottish highlands after Edinburgh.

@ Andrea,

Depending on what you and your hubby wants to do, the time could be less or more.

I spent, for my likes:

UK:

3 full days in Edinburgh
4 full days in London and could have spent more time too.

FRance:

3 full days in Bayeux. But that included a day tour to MSM and the Normandy Beaches. Again depending on what you and your hubby likes to do, you could easily spend more time. I also spent a morning in Caen. All of this was done w/o a rental car too. I will say that even if you get a car, seeing all of the WWII in one day will be a long one and i doubt it will be complete. SO if WWII is of a major interest, then i would put more time in there for that. if not, then no biggie.
I travled by train from Paris to Bayeux and my side trip to Caen. No problem and was a nice approx 2 hour ride (one way) from Paris to Bayeux.

Germany

COlogne. I spent 2 full days there to see what i wanted to see including a side trip to Remagan.

so. depending on what your likes are, your alloted time isnt bad from what ive personally done.

happy trails.

I'm happy to tweak the itinerary a bit, and would like to spend more time in the UK. More Scotland sounds good and so does Wales, but how feasible is it without a car? I don't mind renting one for a few days, but driving on the 'wrong' side I prefer an automatic, which means a bigger expense.

My husband is particularly interested in Normandy, but when I asked him if he would rather have 4 nights there and 3 in Burgundy he said no. On the other hand, he does no research and the final itinerary is up to me. :-) As for whether we need a car in Normandy, we will need one for the rest of France (except Paris) so I figure we should just get it when we arrive and have maximum flexibility.

This is still a work in progress. Thanks for your replies Ed and Ray.

Hi Andrea.. :).. Your itinerary looks really good to me. You have some of my favorite places on your list. I like Bayeux very much, we've stayed many times at Hotel d'Argouges in the heart of town. Amboise is a very nice town, we stayed once at Hotel Belle-Vue which was awful and once at Le Manoir les Minimes which was wonderful (but expensive). We really liked Beaune, spent 4 nights there and it was not too long for us. We spent two days doing RS 2 scenic drives and that was one of the many highlights on that trip. A small village on the scenic drive, called Chateauneuf-en-Auxois, was storybook charming while totally authentic. In Beaune, we stayed at Hotel le Cep which we really liked a lot, but not budget. I'm glad you've included staying a night on Mont St. Michel, I think you'll like it a lot.

Loved York and Edinburgh.. been too long to recommend a place to stay though. Haven't been to the Cotswolds but it's #1 on my list for next trip.

I'd be very happy with this itinerary!

@ Andrea,

no problemo.

everyone plans and travels differently. Im more on the more detail side since i like to make the most of my time and $$$. if i go to a place, i try to see as much so that if/when i return, i can spend less time in the city and more time outside of the city where its hopefully less expensive to stay and to things.

i guess if your hubby doesnt want any input, you have free reign to schedule as you see fit. i think it makes it easier to do, but harder to plan since you will want to include what he may want to do.

what may help is that if you can guestimate on the amount of time needed to do/see each thing and then see how that pencils out for your days and duration in each place. its how i do it, but i try to get more info as to how long things take to do/see.

good luck and happy trails.

Andrea, can I strongly suggest having a car during your visit to the Cotswolds. The towns are nice enough, but the most brilliant scenery is in the villages and between the villages. Will you and hubby be doing any walking? Lovely walks along the river Coln. This is my old stomping ground. I don't want to disagree with others who say to cut short your visit there but I love the area and could find plenty to do (with a car) in a week or even more. If you want to pursue details we could PM.

Thanks for your input everyone. Nigel, I agree with you that 3 nights in the Cotswolds is not too much time, as that only gives us 2 full days there. It is an area I very much want to explore. As for doing walks there, that remains to be seen. I know a car will allow us to see the area more efficiently and I do intend to have one for that area. I will want an automatic. Will that be readily available for rent in Bath or should I consider getting one at Heathrow? I suppose if necessary we can drive from Heathrow to the Cotswolds, then go to Bath from there. We could then take the train to York. As much as I would love to devote some time to Wales and/or the Lake District we would then have to sacrifice something else. I might be able to find a day or two extra for Scotland.

I'm trying to decide what would be the best town to stay in while in the Cotswolds. Any suggestions?

Meanwhile, back in France:

Fly home from Provence and save yourself a long drive to Burgundy. Rent 2 cars so that you can

1. Drive around Normandy and the Loire
2. Spend time in Paris, taking the TGV to Burgundy at end
3. Drive around Burgundy and Provence
4. Avoid wasting time returning to Paris.

Beaune is, as Ed notes, a small town that you can see in a day, but there is a lot to see and do in Burgundy with a car (or bicycle) if you like.

Highlights for me were Vezeley, small towns of the Serien valley, and the Fontenay Abbey; your mileage may of course vary.

We already have our airline tickets, which we got by using airline miles. Additionally we want to end the trip in Germany in order to spend time with family members who live there.

When I mentioned Beaune (?) it was just to mention as a place to base in Burgundy. We will have a car so it can be anywhere. I anticipate having a car for approximately two weeks in France so we can easily see more rural areas. I've been to Provence, so we may decide to poke around Brittany, Alsace or somewhere else instead. Wherever we end up before Paris we will drop the car and train into town, especially from Provence.

Nothing on this trip is written in stone beyond flying into London on 9/12 and flying out of Frankfurt on 10/20. I know I should have a basic itinerary soon to lock in lodging in some of our destinations.

Andrea, it appears that you will be arriving in Bath during the annual Jane Austen festival. Don't tell my wife. She's an active member of JASNA and has done the promenade through Bath in Regency costume. That aside, you might want to be sure you have a place to stay. The JA festival has a lot of people. We stayed in Three Abbey Green which is nicely located and about 500 feet from the Roman Baths. A rental car is a must if you want to see Stonehenge, Avebury, Winchester Cathedral and other sites on the way to Bath. We rented our car at Heathrow and began driving straight away. There is parking overnight at a few places in Bath. Expect about 25GBP/day for parking. From Bath, I recommend visiting Lacock, Castle Coombe and possibly Stourhead Gardens. We joined the National Trust and was able to park at and visit numerous National Trust sites at no cost. We broke even on joining the National Trust but well worth it.

In the Cotswold, you MUST have a rental car. Limited train service and the bus schedules are not frequent enough to really get you around. We stayed in the very nice Poppy Bank B&B in Chipping Campden. There are about 3-4 B&Bs together there and none of these 3-4 were in the RS book when we stayed there. We drove to Oxford and Blenheim Castle from Chipping Campden. About 60 miles. We then skipped all of the Shakespeare stuff (too crowded and touristy) and went up to the Lake District. We did tour Ambelside and saw Peter Rabbit in Hawkshead (part of the National Trust). We stayed near Keswick. Then, on to York where we stayed near Castle Howard.

Your idea of Scotland is great. We did not visit Scotland nor Wales on our 3-week visit but we should have. Don't leave out Canterbury before returning to London. We stayed at the Canterbury Lodge which is actually inside the walls of the Cathedral. Most wonderful.

See you and possibly Jim at our next meeting.

Larry, that is good information to have regarding the Jane Austen festival. I'll check out that B&B B in Bath. Are you suggesting we should pick up the car at the airport and keep it for our entire Bath/Cotwolds time? If the trains are expensive it might be worth keeping the car and driving to York, as opposed to taking a train.

Andrea, if you are in the Cotswold, I believe that one of the few National Rail train stations is in Moreton-in-Marsh. The train run to York takes 4.0hrs-4.5hrs with 1-2 train changes according to the National Rail schedule. You might look into returning to London on the train or rental car and taking the National Rail train from Kings Cross to York. Most runs have no train changes, the run takes 2.0hrs or slightly less and I see fares as low as 14.60GBP. Not bad. Here's a link to what I see on National Rail. http://gyazo.com/6429e8e63392de342df4fc81b860688e

As others have said, that's not much time in Bayeux. The WWII sites and museums are numerous and spread out. It depends on how thorough you want to be, of course. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the Bayeux Tapestry and the Bayeux Cathedral. So I'd spend three days/four nights there. That included an afternoon at the laundromat. I don't know about everyone else but I carry fewer changes of clothes and do laundry once a week. Although next time I may drop them off and pay extra to have them done. That worked great last April in Amsterdam.

Marty, one way I deal with laundry is I try to stay somewhere with a washer (and even better a dryer) as often as I can. That way I can do laundry at night and not waste valuable time during the day.

I'm inclined to spend 4 nights in Normandy (not including a night at MSM. I'm going to truly to work that out.

I just realized you only have 2 nights for York, any chance you could make it 3? It's well worth 2 full days. If you're a James Herriot fan I highly recommend visiting his home in the town of Thirsk near York. We took the train there in under an hour. It was a highlight for me and York itself is amazing and one of my favorite places. Be sure to take a ghost walk in York at night, really fun.

@ Susan, I keep finding ways to spend more time in GB. The only problem with that is it will take away the time I have for France. And you know how much I love France!! I hope you can come to the meeting next month and we can discuss. :-)