Bath & Wales

Hi Gail, Bath isn't too far from LHR, so I recommend flying open jaw from ORD-LHR; MAN-ORD if it is cost effective. Northern Wales is very beautiful, especially along the coast and also the Snowdonia Nat'l Park. There is a scenic train ride to the top of Mt. Snowden, but we didn't take it because of rain. www.betws-y-coed.co.uk is a helpful link. Try the tea house in Llanrwst which is featured on the website. Tu Hwnt I'r Bont As far as castles go, I'll leave those suggestions to other travelers as I haven't really visited any in Wales.

Gail,
We were just in England last mid- May. If you have the time, go for it and drive your routes! We flew in and out of Birmingham, which is a great, smaller international airport which flies directly overnight from Newark on Continental, which by the way is a very nice flight and aircraft. (In fact, we flew on a very smoothly connecting afternoon Continental flight Indianapolis > Newark> Bimingham) So to give you some well-experienced advice, because of jet-lag leaving you plumb tuckered out all day long, you should fly in as close to your conference as possible rather than hours and hours away in London (imagine flying back from Hawaii to Indianapolis, only to stop in St. Louis and drive the rest of the way back home...) You can fly right into Bath/Bristol, but it looks like all of the major airlines hit mainland Europe first before taking another flight back to England... which is fine as long as you know if you need to pick up your bags in Paris/Amsterdam/etc and recheck them onto your final leg Bath flight. What should you see? The roads winding from one place to the next are, in my opinion, a destination altogether. It is absolutely beautiful! Enjoy!

Just as an aside, try to see Powys Castle while you're there. The yews are wonderful.

I think the county is Powys and the castle is Powis.