Tentative Itinerary 2.0--Bath, Cotswolds, London Sept-Oct 2017

[CindyP]

Husband Bob and I have been reading and tossing out ideas to each other almost non stop the last 24 hours, breaking only to sleep.

I appreciate all the suggestions. Your experience shows in all your comments.

Despite all the advice to stay in London first, we really want to save London for the end of the trip. And we also don't want to drive on our first day, so here's what we've come up as a compromise.

Day 0, flight day, with time change we will arrive on the next day, likely very early in the AM.

Day 1, Arrive at LHR, Train to Bath. Stay in Bath 4 nights. On our arrival day our only plans will be to settle into our lodgings (yet to be determined) and roam around a bit on foot.
Day 2, stay in Bath and explore Bath on foot.
Day 3, rent a car in early afternoon and drive to Glastonbury or somewhere else not too far.
Day 4, day trip to Stonehenge, Avebury, Salisbury.

Day 5, drive from Bath to the Cotswolds, stay for 6 nights. Settle into our lodgings (yet to be determined, hoping for Chipping Campden or Stow on the Wold) Explore a bit on foot wherever we end up.
Day 6 through Day 10, walking and exploring in the Cotswolds and nearby, day trip to Oxford in there somewhere.

Day 11, drive from the Cotswolds to LHR and drop off car at airport. We will pay more to drop off car at a different location but think it's worth it for convenience. Get from LHR to our lodgings and settle in (no clue about this yet) .
Day 12 through 15, full days exploring London.
Day 16, get to LHR and fly home.

So does this sound feasible? I knocked our locations down from 4 to 3 and added 1 day to Bath and 2 days to the Cotswolds.

I'm open to all comments and suggestions. We will book our flight very soon and then work on lodging.

Appreciatively,

Cindy

 

[devarae]

It sounds like it will be a fabulous trip! I hope you find the perfect apartments in all locations!

 

[Mom83]

It sounds like a wonderful trip! Staying in those 3 locations vs 4 is a very smart move, I think! The fun part for me would be now looking for places to stay!

 

[CindyP]

Eegads. Just booked our flights. Because of bizarre airline pricing on different dates, we are FORCED to spend an additional night in England. What a dilemma. I will be updating the itinerary above.......look for version 3.0 soon, unless it's minor and becomes 2.1.

Now I have to decide if I should reduce the nights at one of the above 3 locations and do another 2 or 3 night stop at a fourth location, which we had ruled out just this morning. Or add the additional night to one of the 3.

What do you all think.

I'm at the totally boggled state right now. I'm sure my mind will clear.

The Great News is the flights are booked. We are most definitely going to England this September (not into October) God Willing of course.

Cindy P.

 

[Ian Sutton]

Cool
Bath has the advantage that you can get the Heathrow express service to Paddington, from where the Bath train leaves, so that's all good. Paddington to Bath is showing as 1hr30 direct, so the only decision I can see is booking a cheap train ticket in advance and gambling the flight will be on schedule (or having a big safety margin) or just settling for picking up an off-peak single (£14.50 seems the cheapest pre-booked single ticket (£35.50 for 1st class), whilst it's £33.10 to just rock up and pick up an off-peak single).

Walking is the best way to get over jetlag, and Bath certainly doesn't suffer the bright lights of London that can confuse the mind. It might be worth considering 'taking the waters' at the relatively newly opened Thermal baths on day 2, which remarkably for the UK, gains a lot of positive comment for a modern development.

It might be worth looking at staying in Bath longer, giving it a another whole day inbetween the day trips, taking a day off the Cotswolds

I think you may be better dropping the car off at somewhere like Leamington Spa or Banbury, taking the train from there into Marylebone Station. Heathrow is often busy and not ideal for drop off, and you 'may' get hit less hard for drop off reasonably close to Bath. Marylebone is also fractionally closer to the sights in London.

It's definitely taking shape, and isn't unreasonable.

regards
Ian

 

[Kathy]

Any chance you could make your stay in Chipping Campden a full week, maybe Saturday to Saturday? That way you could do a rental, which gives you more room to spread out and you wouldn't have to eat every meal "out." We've spent a lot of time there over the years (a full month in a rental cottage in 2016 and again this coming summer). There is so much to see and do from a base in the northern Cotswolds.

Also, from Bath... you might want to read up on Stourhead, beautiful National Trust landscape gardens, a do-able excursion from Bath if you have a car.

Kathy

 

[Ian Sutton]

I missed the question - 3 base locations is still good. Take a choice between my suggestion and Kathy's. An extra night in either should have advantages.

 

[Fletch]

I just came across this article about restaurants in the Cotswolds.
They look interesting, especially for a celebration meal but I didn't look at all their websites and menus.
http://www.cntraveller.com/recommended/food/cotswolds-best-restaurants

 

[Pauline]

Day 1, Arrive at LHR, Train to Bath. Stay in Bath 4 nights. On our arrival day our only plans will be to settle into our lodgings (yet to be determined) and roam around a bit on foot.

Thetrainline.com, where you see schedules and purchase tickets, will have you take the train into London and then the Bath train from there. There is another option. The train company First runs a bus from Heathrow to Reading train station. We have used this a few times. It is called RailAir and I have info on Cotswolder. This would be better unless the train from London to Bath and doesn't stop at Reading, but I think it does.

 

[Pauline]

I think you may be better dropping the car off at somewhere like Leamington Spa or Banbury, taking the train from there into Marylebone Station. Heathrow is often busy and not ideal for drop off, and you 'may' get hit less hard for drop off reasonably close to Bath. Marylebone is also fractionally closer to the sights in London.

Or drop off in Oxford and take the train from there.

 

[Pauline]

It will be a long day of driving from Glastonbury to Stonehenge/Avebury/Salisbury. And Glastonbury is an odd town - all crystal shops and "new agey". I think it would be better to go from Bath to the Cotswolds and spend the night in Salisbury on your way to return the car (so not doing as I recommended above to return in Oxford), seeing Avebury and Stonehenge on the way to Salisbury. You could even return the car in Salisbury. We picked up a car there once.