Recommendations for England and France itinerary?

Rick's England and France books will have suggested itineraries.

17 days in two great countries.

London and Paris are super places to visit, but I suggest also visiting some places away from those large cities.

ENGLAND
I suggest Premier Inn for lodging. It is not the Ritz, but then fares are very reasonable. There are some great Premier Inns in London, suggest picking one downtown, so you can walk to many places in the city.

The British Museum is great and of course, Westminster Hall (Parliament), The Churchill War Rooms, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral and The Tower of London. There is lots more. Check TripAdvisor for things to do in London.

Outside of London, the British countryside is wonderful. Windsor Castle is a must see. Stonehenge is not far, you may do both in one day. Consider a day in Bath, visiting the ancient Roman Bath Museum and other sites. Also, Jane Austin lived there for a while. Also, she lived in Winchester. Winchester has its famous cathedral and more. Canterbury is another choice on a day trip from London. Oxford and Cambridge are other choices.

https://www.aladyinlondon.com/2020/05/jane-austen-sites-england.html
There is a lot more, but you don't have time if you do France as well. Come back to Britain and do more, especially the Cotswolds and York.

FRANCE

I have been to Paris 4 or 5 times but don't have hotels to recommend. Again, TripAdvisor is a good source. Try to stay in the touristy areas, avoid the perimeter of the city, especially the east and north.

Museums like the Louvre are wonderful and you could spend a week in just the Louvre. Not sure if you can visit Notre Dame, but at least go by and see the exterior. The Eiffel Tower is a must as well as a Seine River cruise. There is much more.

Outside the city, I recommend taking the RER train out to Versailles, you will spend most of a day there. Other trips outside the city would be to Normandy, but you would likely need to take a tour if you are interested in the D-day beaches and WWII history. Bayeux is a must see to see the 900 year old Tapestry that tells the story of the Norman conquest of England.

Another side trip that would likely involve two nights away would be to the Loire Valley (we stayed in Blois) to see some Chateaux or to Strasbourg on the Rhine.

I don't recommend going in the Winter. Summer crowds will be heavy. Still, you could go between late March and late October.

Based on your interests, I would probably divide things up so that you are in England for about 2 weeks and Paris for 1 week.

Have you considered doing the Best of England tour (14 days) and arriving a few nights early to Bath for extra JA time.

There is a fun JA Festival in September depending on when you plan to visit. I did it a few years ago so I would be there on the opening weekend then met up with the BOE tour. Very fun and I did not find Bath any more crowded than "normal". I thought it was hilarious to see people in Regency costume walking around Bath. So fun if you are a fan!

https://janeausten.co.uk/pages/festival-overview

If you don't want to do the Best of England, fly in to London and take the National Express Coach to Bath for 3 or 4 nights. Do a Mad Max day tour of the Cotswolds which will take you to Stow-on-the-Wold. At that stop be sure to go to St Edward's Churchyard to see the north door and the Yew trees there. Tolkien visited Stow-on-the-Wold and it is said that he got the idea for the Hobbit house from this door.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Edward%27s_Church,_Stow-on-the-Wold

After your time in Bath, if you have an interest in Stonehenge, take the train to Salisbury for 2 nights. Catch the local shuttle bus out to the stones and back by Old Sarum then visit the Salisbury Cathedral.

Take the train to London and spend the rest of your time there.

From London, take the Eurostar directly to Paris. Spend a week here soaking up the museums, architecture and history of this wonderful city! Tons of museums, gothic churches, Art Nouveau buildings, gorgeous gardens....so much to see here.

Fly home from Paris.

I'm doing the reverse in April....sort of....flying in to Amsterdam for a few days to see the Vermeer special exhibition, then taking the train to Paris for 10 nights, then Eurostar to London for 8 nights then meeting up with a tour from a former Rick Steves guide. SO much to see!

If you go to Salisbury and Stonehenge, be sure to read Sarum by Rutherfurd. From Paris you should go to Chartres to see the cathedral.

With 3 weeks I would recommend a deep dive into England for a richer experience. My favorite places I like to visit are called the Treasure Houses of England www.treasurehouses.co.uk. These are a collection of 10 Grand Homes that are still lived in and are fully furnished in Heritage collections of Art and Historic Artifacts. Some of these have 2 for one passes if you purchase ahead. Some may be part of another favorite of mine which is visiting sites on the National Trust List www.nationaltrust.uk.org. If you buy membership you get an admissions pass and parking for several hundred locations in England & Wales. It is fairly easy to drive in the UK, even if it is on the left side...just follow where the traffic goes! We've driven thru the UK twice and had a blast! I would do Paris when you have time for some more France. I have seen on this site that it is very expensive to stay in Paris right now...and crowded.

for JRR Tolkien you may want to concentrate on the Birmingham area where he grew up, a building in Moseley from his childhood, Birmingham University at Selly Oak for the tower, the towns and villages south and west of Birmingham for the Shire, Stow-on-the-Wold for the Hobbit door, and Oxford University for his love of languages and many scenic hints, and lots of JRR history.

for Jane Austin, east of Birmingham is Northamptonshire and lots of Jane Austen history so much of it appears in the books. Then south to Winchester and nearby Chawton (throw in a steam railway right next door for good measure). She disliked Bath a lot despite all the tourists (especially Americans) flooding there. There is also Jane Austen history and buildings associated with her in London. Then there is Lyme Regis and its famous Mole on the South Coast.

If you are interested in the movies as well as the books Pemberley was likely inspired by the National Trust property at Lyme Park in Cheshire. It was also filmed in the Colin Firth version, and "that scene with Mr Darcy coming out of the lake" was filmed there and you can visit the pond (looks bigger in the film).

There is Wikipedia page with other Pemberley locations and then by following the links the whole lot opens up.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pemberley

London and Paris are both great and you can certainly enjoy five to seven days (full days) in each. That leaves you a few days in each country, or a week (even a week +) in one country, to visit smaller cities or more rural areas.

The Chunnel train is certainly an easy way to get from central London to central Paris. Doubt that the travel time is any longer than flying, and possibly a little shorter. No long subway/metro/taxi trips to/from the airport/city (up to one hour at each end, plus wait-time). Much shorter security/terminal time and delay. It is also more relaxing.

I do not know enough about all the ramblings from which you might choose in order to offer you much itinerary advice, though I would suggest you seriously consider at least a day trip to Oxford as part of your visit to England. The Natural History museum there is amazing, as is the Asmolean. The architecture of the colleges will also appeal greatly to you, given what you mention in your post.

Beyond that, you just need to read and choose ... Bath, Portsmouth, Cambridge, Stratford, the Cotswolds. That alone may be more than you can do in a week, depending on your pace of travel and means of transport. As for London, one fascinating little architectural (and historic) gem I will suggest is the Sir John Soane House - an 11 or 12 minute walk from the British Museum.

For France, the same applies. We are planning our third trip to France - 4 weeks next spring. We have previously spent a week in Provence and a week in Paris. Still, after our 4 week trip next spring, we will still have NOT traveled to Giverny, Normandy, Bretagne, Burgundy, Alsace, Lyons, Nice or the Pyrenees.

So, for your planning in terms of France, just in terms of history and architecture ... are you interested in the Hundred Years War, WW1, WW2, for example? Pre-historic caves? Roman times? In Provence, you will find Roman landmarks such as the Pont du Gard, the Theatre in Orange, the Arena in Arles, and the Roman Temple and Arena in Nimes.

Look at itineraries of RS trips and other travel books. Pick and choose. Bon voyage.

We've done the London Paris Eurostar trip and it's best to spilt your time down the middle as both areas deserve time.

For must sees, I would get a RS guidebook or even better, do a Google search which will give you more information than you need to know. People have different tastes and like different things. For example, most people on this board would recommend Versailles Palace but I've been to Paris three times and have never had the inclination to visit.

Get a few guide books, do some google searches and create your own itinerary and then people can make suggestions on how to spread your time wisely.

Thank you all for your wonderful recommendations! I’m intrigued by the idea of building off an existing Rick Steves tour. What are your thoughts about doing a RS Best of England in 14 Days tour, spending an extra day or two in London to see the museums not listed on that tour with a trip up to Oxford; and then piggy-backing to the RS Paris & the Heart of France in 11 Days tour? A little bit longer than 3 weeks (actually 4) but getting both the England/France experience. 🙂

I would caution trying to mirror a tour where transportation, lodging, meals, etc. are managed by a tour company with a tour guide.
It is different when you are on your own. You must expect something of a learning curve with doing it own your own, particularly when in a large European city.

We did a four week drive tour of England and S. Wales in 2017 on our own. Extensive planning was required. We found getting from point to point took longer than we planned on google maps. Also, parking a rental car adds more issues, since parking, even in small cities or towns can take more time. Still, we did quite a lot on our four weeks tour and our only issue on the entire trip was the ONE day that the car's navigation system failed us when we were going into Durham, England. Fortunately, I had the hotel's phone number, which my wife called and the desk clerk guided us to the hotel for 15 minutes.

Planning your own tour can be lots of fun, leaning exactly what you plan to see and why those items are important, historic or whatever.

I don't recommend doing this in the Winter. Also, find out when school holiday periods are were you go and try to avoid them.

Thank you geovagrifith for your post. However, I wasn’t thinking of “mirroring” the Rick Steves tours. Rather, I was thinking of actually going on them back to back. I wasn’t as clear as I should have been. One of the reasons for doing so is precisely because of the benefits of having a tour company such as Rick Steves handle the logistics. Any other thoughts on utilizing these two particular tours back to back? 🙂

Quite a few people on the forum have taken back-to-back tours (I haven't). The reports have generally been positive, but tours do keep you hopping, so I'd tend not to want to go-go-go if I had just a very few days on my own between tours. Staying put in London could work (consider taking a couple of London Walks walking tours), but I'd counsel you that "spending an extra day or two in London to see the museums not listed on that tour with a trip up to Oxford" will not be relaxing. Even spending an extra two weeks in London wouldn't allow you to see all the museums not covered on the tour; there are dozens, and several are large enough that a comprehensive visit takes more than a full day. You can easily spend more than a day in Oxford, so a day trip from London will probably have you doing some rushing from place to place there as well.

There are issues with the Eurostar train between London and Paris these days. It's no longer possible to just show up an hour before departure time. You can figure that travel leg is going to take you over half a day from London hotel to Paris hotel.

I love guided tours and the older I get, the more inclined I am to book them.

However, I have found that doing your own travel will save as opposed to a paid tour.

Well, I loved this combination when I did it a few years ago. I have done a number of back to backs and the combo of the Best of England and Paris and the Heart of France was excellent. I did a night or 2 extra in London at the end but I'd added time before the tour for about a week in London plus extra time in Salisbury and Bath (for the JA festival, lol!!). I allowed an extra day on my transition to Paris which was good because my Eurostar was running really late so I'd want to get there at least the day before the tour starts.

Also...it would not matter to me which order I did these tours in - if the dates work better you could easily do Paris and Heart of France first and then finish with Best of England.

Here is a link to my trip report for the combined tours.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/tours/trip-tour-report-for-best-of-england-paris-hof

And yes, I loved just re-reading my TR and thinking about the wonderful time I had!

Great trip report Pam! Thanks!

Jon, cross my heart I am not a planted shill for RS tours, hahaha!