Three days in England - Overwhelmed by options - Looking for ideas
Looking for ideas - we're two adults in our mid-30's, no kids. We'll be leaving a wedding on a Monday in Ipswich but our flight home from London isn't until Friday. We'll be spending a week in London beforehand so we'd like to explore the countryside.
The only thing we've (sort of) landed on is seeing/staying in the Cotswolds, and touring some castles (holy crap there's a ton to chose from). We're not big drinkers/partiers but I'd like to be able to go hang out in a real English pub and stay at a Lord-of-the-Rings kind of inn (I already found the inn that the Prancing Pony is based on - thought not sure if we want to stay there).
Other random thoughts. Unfortunately our schedule doesn't seem like it'll line up with any Premier League games. Not planning on renting a car but can if we absolutely must. Would kind of like to stay in one spot since it's only 3 nights.
I'm biased of course, living as I do in the county of Northumberland, you could do a lot worse than come here.
Alnwick Castle is where a lot of Hogwarts was filmed (and some of the Downton Abbey film IIRC), and they lean in to that quite heavily, plus their gardens are spectacular though may be coming to the end of the season. Bamburgh Castle is also mighty fine, but as you say there are loads more. The countryside and beaches around Alnmouth, Bamburgh are great too and close by.
Lots of pubs in Alnwick which might fit the bill, including one which is fitted with a lot of the stripped out decorative materials from R.M.S. Olympic, the sister ship to Titanic, and that would be the White Swan.
You can get to Northumberland reasonably easily, can get some nice trains up the east coast main line (recommend Lumo) and change at Newcastle to the Northern Rail and there's a station at Alnmouth, you'd have to taxi to Alnwick from there, or get a bus at Newcastle directly to Alnwick (X18 is one I use).
Might be a bit far for you I guess, but at least I got all excited writing about it :)
Note for people who have never heard it said out loud, it's not "Aln-wick", it's "Ann-ick". At a very rough guess I would estimate that about 1/4 of British place names are not pronounced the way they're written, but then I live in Norfolk where people don't say all the letters in most words.
Anyway Alnwick is very lovely and the Northumbrian coast is stunning if you manage to go when it's not raining, but it's going to take a solid half a day of mostly pretty dull travel to get there from London and the same back. I'm not sure I'd recommend it for someone who only has three days.
That said, the secondhand bookshop in Alnwick, Barter Books, is 100% worth a trip if you're in the area. It has a train!
Bater is great. And yeah, I didn't take into account the somewhat compressed time frame of the visit. It might be better for OP to stay closer.
You're darned right about the Northumberland coast though. I've never become tired of it, and I've lived here for over two score and ten years.
Nothing is set in stone, but I was mostly looking at this area because we have such a short time there I don't want to spend too much of it on travel time. We also have to consider the huge amount of luggage we'll have since we need so much of our dress clothes for the event, usually we travel with just backpacks but we'll each have a large suitcase and might even need a third for all her dresses and my suits.
I will keep it in mind though! This is not our last trip to England, we are hoping to visit the British Isles for an extended time, 2-3 weeks, in a couple years.
I’m glad you said this because my first thought after reading they had a week in London and wanted to get out if the city was, “head North”!
Travel time would make it tricky but it’s a very different vibe. I still think it would be worth it.
I think you've discovered the issue, three nights is not enough time to do much in the UK.
I think you could probably see the sights in one major city (that isn't London or Edinburgh).
My recommendation would be to do exactly what you guys want to do, the things you posted sound like a good plan and you can stick to the Cotswolds and have a nice time for 3 days.
If you like it... Plan a trip back! I realise it's expensive, but make the effort because it's worth it to come see the rest of the world.
Plus Scotland is better than England ;)
Bath would be a nice choice for a day out if they're near the Cotswolds. Not a "major" city but a lovely one to see and you can see most of the historic centre in a day of wandering.
Bath is a good city to visit I agree!
Thanks for it recommendation! Yeah this is not THE trip to England more of a precursor to the more extended trip we'd like to do someday!
I think you a word there.
It’s funny because my brain just inserted the not automatically until I saw your reply.
Thanks! Fixed I hope!
Three day is not a lot, as others have pointed out. So effectively you are going to miss most of the country and arguably some of the best things anyway.
So, anything you can see is a bonus ;) What I am trying to say is don't try to pack those three days as full as possible to see as much as possible. Pick a few nice things, don't worry too much about them being the best and just enjoy your choice.
Which, I think, you already seem to have done anyway. You mostly seem to need to pick a castle and an inn to stay at ;)
It is not a long time. We are looking at this as a little bonus prior to THE England trip we want to do someday. Thanks for the input!
When I was in London the #1 thing I wanted to do was see a West End show, I saw Les Mis and it was fantastic!
ALTHOUGH at the time my glasses prescription was way out of date and I could barely see anything on the stage lmao so it's more like I went to a really blurry concert rendition of Les Mis. LPT get your eyes checked if you're about to travel to do a lot of sightseeing and haven't gotten them checked in several years
Since moving to the UK, Bath so far has been my favourite city. It's really quite stunning to walk around, and has a relaxed and calm vibe. It's accessible from London in just over an hour which makes travelling easier.
Other lovely cities include Chester, York, Edinburgh, Oxford and Cambridge, although if you're only picking a single place; I'd go with Bath, then for a little longer (3-4h travelling) York.
Bath or oxford are both amazing historic cities where you could stay and from which you could visit a Cotswold village.
I would choose one.
It's further South, so probably out of range for you, but do you or your partner like tanks?
I'm kind of obsessed and so I went to Bovington Tank Museum in May and it was absolutely incredible. My wife, who has zero interest in tanks, even found it interesting. Granted, not the entire 8-hours over two days I made her go with me (it was my birthday!) but she still thought it was interesting.
Echoing others, I would suggest Bath. It's a beautiful city, and very easily accessible. You could possibly fit in Bristol, too, as a "big English city" experience.