On 7th July I will be spending a month in England. It is a long awaited holiday. My father is English and my parents have spent a few years living there in the 70s (and have been back since) so I’ve heard their suggestions and recommendations. I’ve also heard my friend’s suggestions and recommendations (most of which is fairly London orientated).
Can any Brits out there give me the MUST-SEEs of England? I’ve already got visits to Stonehenge, Bath, various sites in Lancashire (where my father’s maternal family comes from) and a lot of touristy stuff in London planned.
Given that my base will be around London (three of my friends have me on accomodation rota), what are some good day trips to take? Are there any places not mentioned in Lonely Planet (et al) that you highly recommend? Also, how is the weather at that time of the year? I know it’s Summer and peak tourist season, but what will it be like for a Melbourne girl?
There’s a day trip I’ve recommended on this board before that takes in a lot of really cool neolithic and other sites, ending up in Stonehenge.
You can only really do it in a car, though - you start out west of Oxford (which is only about an hour and a half from London) at Uffington, where you visit the Blowing Stone (a stone full of holes that King Alfred allegedly blew through like a trumpet to summon up an angelic army to defeat the Danes), then the Wayland Smithy (where your horse gets magically re-shod if you leave it overnight), then the White Horse of Uffington (you get a wish granted if you walk round its eye three times widdershins), then you drive to Silbury Hill (big neolithic earthwork), Avebury (a stone circle so big there’s a village inside it), West Kennet and Avon Long Barrow (burial mound), and then southwards to Stonehenge, Woodhenge, Sarum and Salisbury.
You must take a boat ride up the Thames to Hampton Court—the ride itself is as pleasant as the destination.
And do visit the bookshop at Westminster Abbey—they sell actual old newspapers and magazines there (some going back to the 1700s!) for not much money at all.
The demolished Glastonbury Cathedral is a sight to behold, too. Town’s fulla hippies, but they can be dodged.
[Waits for Ukulele Ike to show up and say, “Get on a boat and go to France”]
The York Minster (in York, duh). Beats Westminster by a mile.
In Oxford: The Pitt-River Museum. Actualy, “Museum” is a bit of a stretch. It’s more like, “piles and piles of crap people brought home from the Colonies.” You can poke around there for hours looking at some British Major’s collection of carven ivory from China, playing cards from the Phillipines, etc. There’s no partiular order to it (or wasn’t when I was there last, about 1994).
Another vote for the Pitt-Rivers museum. It’s amazing. I worked there one summer when I was at school (got to polish the Sundance Kid’s saddle - and dust the mummies and the shrunken heads!). Pitt-Rivers collected all the stuff himself in the early part of the last century, and then died, leaving it catalogued but just lying in a warehouse. Eventually someone said “we’ve got all this amazing crap - where shall we put it?” Hello Again’s right - it’s still just a jumble, but I think the lack of coherence makes it all the better - you never know what you’re going to find there. And the building is beautiful. As well as the obvious stuff, check out the many hundreds of drawers in the display cabinets on the galleries - each one is crammed full of weird stuff.
Just North of Oxford by the village of Woodstock you’ve got Blenheim Palace, where Churchill grew up. It’s a very very impressive building with huge and beautiful grounds, and makes you wonder why there was never a revolution in England…
A bit further north, into the Cotswolds, there is the Rollright Stones, a small stone circle on top of a hill, that’s very atmospheric, and the countryside around is gorgeous.
If the weather’s nice, hire a punt and go punting on the Cherwell river - there are two or three places to hire punts, but the nicest route is from the Cherwell Boat House (pronunciation hints for Oxford: Cherwell is pronounced charwell, and Magdalene college is pronounced maudlin).
Stroud, that glorious metropolis. Don’t go there, don’t believe anyone who says it’s nice. Avoid like the plague. For enjoyment of your trip don’t go within 5 miles of this place.
My advice is take London in 3 or 4 day doses; you’ll burn out, else! Do a day trip in between out of the city–Eve’s suggestion of Hampton Court is a winner, also keep something like a picnic lunch at Kew Gardens in mind (buy what you need at a Marks & Spencers food shop, at many main line rail stations). St. Alban’s is a nice town for a day out, as well; nice (if pricey) upscale clothes shopping, v. old buildings (including roman ruins), and only about 30 mins north of King’s X. Have lunch at Zizzy.
For a cheap lunch in London (a minor miracle), go to the Chelsea Kitchen at 98 King’s Road, or the Stock Pot on 18 Old Compton Street near Leicester Square (just over the road from Retail Slut–can’t miss it). Family-run Italian restaurants with excellent home-made soup and pasta, real coffee and lunch entrees under 5 quid.
The Museum of London (http://www.museum-london.org.uk/); is another must-see, great history of the city, with all sorts of cool stuff they found while digging the Tube back in the 1840s-1900s; Roman Temples, Saxon things, medaeval jewels, as well as the daily life of Londoners through the ages.
Don’t miss doing several “London Walks” tours–did the “Jack The Ripper” one last week with the retired Metroplitan Policeman Donald Rumbelow (*author of The Complete Jack the Ripper), and it was great–through the streets of Whitechapel (well, those left by the Blitz, anyway). There are dozens of other walks, all by well-infomed and colourful guides. The “Legal and Illegal London” was great, too.
The weather has been bloody hot the last few weeks, high twenties, humid, but overnight the skies opened up and it finally rained heavily; think layers! Always be ready for rain, especially if you’re going to visit family oop north, lass.
Try and get to Brighton, if you can. York and Bath are both beautful cities, with much parts of their medaeval and regency charm still to be found (even going into high season). Don’t miss going on a tour of the Minster in York, and the Jorvik Centre in York is very good, too.
Oh yes, bring money–lots and lots of it. Expensive country.
