Cambridge to Stratford-upon-Avon

Hello Flower Mound!!! I went to a corporate Christmas dinner in Flower Mound one day nearly 20 years ago and had for my first and last ever time a chocolate tower. The place had this thing about vertical food. <g> So, Pam, back to the question on the table; Short of a personal jet-pack or a helicopter it seems to me that a car is the only reasonable way to get from Cambridge to Stratford-upon-Avon in time for a 1pm show. It can be done by train (Cambridge to London Kings Cross to London Marylebone to SAV) but it takes between 4 and 4 and a half hours each way and if the Circle Line is out in London for the usual weekend Engineering Works to allow CrossRail to be built, you will have to do some exotic tube riding to get to Marylebone. Even as it is you will walk from Baker Street to Marylebone because only the Bakerloo Line stops at Marylebone - about 250ish metres. The other tube route if they are not disrupted is the southbound Victoria Line to Oxford Circus to northbound Bakerloo Line to Marylebone. My memory, if not addled by too much Italian sunshine - Londoners correct me please - is that that connection at Oxford Circus is effectively across the platform on the same level. You could also go Piccadilly Line to Piccadilly Circus and connect to the northbound Bakerloo from there. Sounds like a lot of trouble though... Figure a couple of hours by car using the A14 (pray assiduously for decent traffic between Cambridge and Huntington and look closely at the Catthorpe Interchange at the junction of the A14, M1 and M6 where you will go from the A14 to the M6 on Google Earth) and A46 nearly straight into SAV. >>Be careful where you park<<. For example the two sides of Sheep Street are different. Parking designed to catch non-locals. Have a post play meal at Carluccio's. Return the car closer than the airport.

My very knowledgeable wife raises a couple of questions... She noticed you say you are only spending one night in Cambridge whereas it looks to me like you must be there for 2 if on Sunday you will be near Stansted?????? Anyway, why not return the car where ever you will be going to London from, SAV or Cambridge or whereever, not back to the hell-hole of Stansted. Also - she says tell them to use the multi-storey car park you get to on the right hand side of the road as you get to the one way scheme in SAV, no more expensive and a whole lot easier than trying to park on the street especially on a Saturday and even more a RSC performance day. I think you might even use the Park-and-Ride by the river before you get into SAV. If so, leave plenty of time.

We are staying in SAV at a B&B that provides parking. I will check to see if we can return the car to somewhere close to SAV without significant added charges.
Thanks!