London and taking the ferry to Normandy

Thanks for the information. Is there a faster ferry if you don't take a car?

Whether or not you have a car, the crossing time is the same for any particular ferry.

While Portsmouth-Caen daytime ferries are faster than the overnight ferry, traveling overnight will save you the cost of a night in a hotel, plus you will have more daylight hours for sightseeing.

If your starting point is London, then the fastest way to get from London to Caen (or Bayeux) is to take the Eurostar from London to Paris and another train from Paris to Caen (or Bayeux).

Not sure what you have in mind, but it sounds like a car the whole way. You'll need one in Normandy and for southern England as well. Definitely for Scotland too, unless you're only aiming for the two big cities. Open your mind to all possible alternatives. Weird as it may seem, if I'm going to the UK, I land on the continent and get a car there where it's usually cheaper. I cross (with car) from Dunkerque to Dover which I find to be the cheapest by far, especially with early am or late pm passage; then bring the car back. This crossing is two hours, with a one-hour time zone change. From Dunkerque to Caen or Paris is 3 -- 3 1/2 hours, easy. Don't drive in London, get an X-day metro pass. Of course you could do the thing in reverse, taking the car to France as above and returning it to the UK. Steve's right, a week for London and the nearby areas is enough. If driving, watch your time leaving Scotland; Edinburgh to London is an all-day project with minimal stops.

I'm not a fan of Bath. Three hours would do me to see the roman stuff and then I'd be gone. The town is like others you'll see. Somewhere along the way you might want to stop at Avebury for a couple of hours (skipping Stonehenge or just driving by it and enjoying looking at the darn fence).

We used trains to visit Cardiff, Bath, London, Battle and Portsmouth (1 week), then took the overnight ferry to St Malo. Picked up a car there for Normandy, the rental place was only is a short walk from the port. Drove round Normandy to see the battlefields. Returned the car at Paris CDG. It worked well for us and the overnight ferry was fun. Though 8.30pm until 8.30am (11 hour trip given the time difference) was not quite long enough to check out everything going on and still get enough sleep!

Thanks so much for the information. We'll still plotting out our trip and we may now focus only on Scotland and England and do France on our next trip.

Remember that driving the same car in England & France means having the steering on the wrong side relative to the center of the road in either one or the other location. The English & French do it occasionally, but they are used to it. In my opinion, it would be INSANE for an infrequent traveler/driver to attempt to do this while dealing with foreign signs, traffic circles, etc.

We have driven in both locations, but not with the same car.

I routinely take cars rented in France or Germany into the UK and vice versa. Manual or automatic, steering wheel left or right, driving on left or right. It's rather humdrum. The only hard thing about renting cars overseas is figuring out how to start the darn things and how to make the headlights work. The rest is a piece of cake. Cars are sort of like airplanes, once somebody shows you how to start the scoundrel, anybody can fly/drive it.