Expert: Alun Hill MCIJ - 2/21/2011

Question
QUESTION: Hello,
I am currently planning our travels to the UK in April. I have my flights AND accommodations booked and confirmed. They are as follows --
April 14 Arrive in Heathrow and stay in London until April 18
April 18 travel to Wales (Blaneau Festinaag) and stay there until April 22.
April 22 travel to Sterling, Scotland and stay until April 26
April 26 return to London and depart for Paris on April 28.

I originally booked this vacation last year but had to cancel when my mom got seriously and passed. At the time, I booked the B and B's and basically thought that spending 3-5 days in each stop would be comfortable enough for us to what we might want to see. Maybe we should have tried to stay in London a little longer but we also want to spend considerable time in Wales and Scotland.

Main attractions we would like to see in London and the surrounding area are --
Tower of London
Oxford
Stonehenge
Museums

We also really enjoy eating nice food (not necessarily expensive food but no MacDonalds).

I was looking through the internet on guided tours to Stonehenge. Are they really worth the price you pay? Are the "behind the fence" tours more spectacular? ie are we missing out since there are no special tours while we are in London?

Would it be possible or simply insane to take a train to Salisbury with our luggage, bus it to Stonehenge, take in the sites and then proceed on to Wales all in one day? The B and B in Wales said it takes about 6 hours via train to get there from London (London to Llandudno Junction changing for Blaenau ffestiniog)

If this is a possibility, where would be the best place to safely leave our belongings? We hope to travel relatively light (one large suitcase/ back pack, two carry on bags and 2 smaller day packs is what we are hoping for).

From Wales to Scotland, what do you think is the best route to take and approximately how long would it take to get to Sterling?

I'm starting to feel like we are going to be way over our heads. I THOUGHT 2 weeks in the UK would be enough time to get a fairly good taste of the country. This will be my first trip to the UK and my wife's second trip to London. She spent 4 nights in London last time and went straight to Paris.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. If we have other "attractions" we'd like to also visit, I'll send a follow up email.

Thanks for your help.
Hiroshi

ANSWER: Thank you for your questions.

Here in order, are some observations / suggestions:

Firstly, London Heathrow - if you are arriving in the morning, remember that clearing Customs etc can take about 2 hours, followed by at least an hour's journey into your London hotel. This could mean that a lot of your day will be lost.

Stonehenge is in a very rural location.

London to Salisbury by train is £33 (all fares are single / one way, per passenger), with a bus to Amesbury, then a 30 minute walk, then approx £7 admission. Also, you'd need to get back to Salisbury (where there is no left luggage facility) and catch the last connecting train, which leaves at 1345, with three changes, each of around 10 minutes each, and arrive at Blaeneau at 2019 - this ticket would cost £99.

Similarly a day trip to Oxford by rail would take a day and be expensive, both in terms of the time and cost.

I would suggest you take a coach tour of Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and Oxford - on one tour on one day this is £56 with EvanEvans Tours - a very long established and reputable company. They will almost certainly collect you from your hotel, too. Details are here:

http://www.evanevanstours.co.uk/windsor-stonehenge-oxford-cl.htm

This would give you 2 days to see London's museums and the Tower etc.

They will take you into the Henge and you will be just a few yards from the Stones.

From London, you can take the 10.10 train, changing twice and arrive at Blaenau at 14.34, or the 13.10, arriving 16.33. The cost is £68.


From Blaenau, you can take train at 1010 to Stirling (note the spelling: Stirling is the city, sterling is the currency), arriving, after 3 changes of train, at 14.34, or leaving at 1310 and arriving at 17.33. Each of these changes is quite short, at around 10 minutes, so do make sure you're ready to get off the train at each stop, please, and look at the screens for the platform of your next train. This is £107.

All these times may change, so are to give you an idea of the journeys.

Stirling to London is about 6 hours and one change, but the 1030 goes direct to London, with no changes needed. The cost is £102.


You can probably save approximately half of the TOTAL rail fare by booking a ticket from London to Stirling, with  a separate ticket from Warrington (where you leave the main line to head into Wales) to Blaenau and back, but you would need to travel on specific trains.

Let me know where I can help further with the rail travel, please.


For eating, every possible dish (and price!) is available in London, but there is much less choice in Stirling, and, especially in this part of North Wales.

Alun Hill, MCIJ




---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks so much for the detailed answer and costs. Would it make sense to get a British Rail pass or paying single fares for each trip (or your last suggestion) would be a smarter option?

Hiroshi

ANSWER: Hi - this would depend on the Country you are from, as there re varying fares in different parts of the world - mostly branded " Britpass" or similar.

However, you are travelling for relatively few days and these passes usually are best value when used most days in the UK.


Alun

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hello again,
Thanks for all the tips. I was looking into booking the train tickets through National Rail http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk and tried out the round trip to Stirling suggestion. The person I talked to said that I am not able to get off at Warrington Bank Quay (WBQ) and come back on if it was for more than a day.  Instead, I have to book a one-way to WBQ from London, a round trip to Blaenau, another single to Stirling from WBQ and finally a one way to London from Stirling. Is there another site I can check? The total came out to about 185.50 GBP. If I was able to do a round trip to Stirling and a round trip to Blaenau, the cost would have been 149.40 GBP. Hopefully, I'm making enough sense. Thanks for all your help.

Answer
National Rail shows the ticket prices for all the companies, sorry.

You COULD try and book single tickets in advance, to and from London and Warrington, as this could be much cheaper -  but if you miss a train, there's no refund and you would have to pay the full fare.

Happy to help!

Alun