No, it’s probably more like four days, by driving. Much of it is over unpaved roads, and there’s wolves the size of cows that lie in wait.
But you can fly with NofuelAir from Southend to inside the walls of Warwick Castle in about eight minute, and they pay you in champagne for being able to do so.
My issue is that often the guides have rather questionable knowledge, to say the least. Sometimes they’re little more than a history version of email-forwards. (After all, even the Tower of London has a completely fictitious execution block in pride of place on the green.)
Pax! Enough! I withdraw my suggestion - avoid it like the plague that is probably still raging there!
To quote that very funny Victoria Wood sketch
TV Announcer - " I must apologise to all our viewers in the North , It must be horrible having to live up there "
Castles;
Leeds Castle is OK - if you have a noggin-the-nog/Robin Hood idea of what a castle should be like then Leeds Castle (which is NOT in Leeds (this is important!) is pretty much what you’re looking for - and it’s reasonably easy to get to from London on the train.
Warwick Castle is again a proper castle, but as has been said it is part of the Tussauds chain and has wax work tableaux arounnd it (although given that the one thing that everyone knows about Warwick Castle is that it is where Edward II met his monserously gruesome end, it is odd that they ae rather coy abut this - even the guides will say no more than “he was brutally murdered”). I liked it and so did my brats (but they’re a fair bit younger than yours).
But really I would go for Windsor - It is HUGE castle, 40 mins from london on the train (from Waterloo) and is also a working palace. Windsor itself is a nice enough town (very touristy). While you’re there combine it with a trip to Eton nearby and have a look at the chapel (by the same blokes that did the chapel at Kings cambridge).
piccies;
windsor castle:
http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=windsor%20castle&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=wi
Eton College:
Wouldn’t it have been a better idea just to e-mail owlstretchingtime rather than start this thread in the first place? It seems fairly obvious he knows more about England & Scotland and tourist attractions than the rest of us put together.
You are the only person i’ve ever heard use this, aside from on TV. Unless you’re going to hang out with some East End Cockney Wankers in Billingsgate Market.
Uh, I get called a Septic all the time by workmates…
Calm down old chap - I’m only trying to help. I have the advantage of living in London with kids so tend to know my way around the touristy and kid-friendly places within easy reach of London.
But I’ll leave you to it as it is obvious that my attempts at contstructive help have upset your delicate northern soul.
Nah, you make good suggestions to start with. Its the ‘I know best, even though I may never have been there and wouldn’t go up North anyway’ attitude that tends to grate after the 2nd time of doing it I’m talking about.
A quick poll of the office says nobody’s even heard of the phrase Septic. YMMV.
Fair enough. I wil admit to being completely ignorant of the north - aside from a few obvious tourist places like York. I’ve only ever been there for football or business - which don’t give a fair picture. Why not suggest some Northern places then?
I’ll just assume your farmers were playing up again.
But when I’m saying , for instance, Windsor is a better day out than Leeds or Dover Castle it is based on experience, and reasonably recent experience.
Some things are a matter of taste - It’s not for me to say that “King Lear” is a better night out for someone than “We Will Rock You” but trust me on this: When it comes to castles, stately homes; theme parks; shopping centres or any other place designed to suck money out of a parent’s wallet I HAVE been there, I HAVE done it and I HAVE bought the (child’s size) T Shirt.
And for the OP: This site has most of the questions about Britain (including the North (grim) and lots more:
Forgive me if someone else already said this, but I have to dash out the door and can’t sift through this whole thread – the Beatles’ stuff is now at the British Library in Euston St, about a 10 minute walk from the British Museum. (Allegedly, it’s all borrowed from someone in the Beatles’ camp, as one of my friends up there on staff said about a year or so ago, Paul McCartney was in the Library and livid when he came upon the display, claiming a lot of it was stuff pinched by this other person. Who knows!)
Cool! That’s one thing down…
Oh. Really? Then what IS the purpose of the tour? Is it like “100 years ago, there was a boarding house here where this office is now” kind of thing? No fun at all, huh?
Oh, I might love it too. I grew up near Maxwell Street. The rest of the grown-ups, though, maybe not so much. What’s in Camden Passage and Portobello Road?
Gotcha. I understand that Stonehenge is no longer “accessible”? In other words, we can’t get closer than the roadside, right?
I AM mainly interested in the underground war stuff. Whitehall is better than the Secret Wartime Tunnels mentioned earlier?
Warwick sounds cool. I know how Edward II died, so I’d truly prefer NOT to see a waxworks thereof, thanks! “Brutally murdered” is plenty of information for the kiddies. We’re actually OK with touristy stuff, we just don’t want ONLY touristy stuff. Since none of us except for Kathleen and Rick have ever been there, we’ll want to get as much flavo(u)r as possibly without getting bogged down in stuff we could find ANYWHERE.
ALL of you have been extremely helpful. I’m going to buy maps and guidebooks this weekend at Barnes & Noble. Can I come back and post potential itineraries for critique?
Well, it’s like this: they no longer let the touristas touch the rocks because they don’t want to risk any more erosion/vandalism.
Stonehenge is in the middle of open farm land, and you’ll see a lot of sheep and some hillside carvings. It’s visible for miles. You’ll be directed to park on the other side from it, then you go down a tunnel under the highway and get tix at the gate. Then you pass through a little village that sells souvenirs and gewgaws, and get a wand off a rack. These wands are speakers with number pads you hold up to your ear, and there are various places around the monument that have little signs with numbers. You press the number and hear the story behind it. The monument is surrouded with a roped-off asphalt trail, and about the closest you get to it is 10 feet. You can fondle one of the keystones to your heart’s delight though.
Stonehenge was part of our tour group’s package, but I heard that you can get the “After Hours” special. It’s a chartered bus trip, and you visit Stonehenge at night when it’s all lit up. They also serve champagne, and there’s not nearly as many people as there are during the daytime.
LifeonWr, if your girls want to meet Graham Norton, they have a good chance of getting to be in the audience at a recording of the show. You have to email the producers, give the first and last names of up to six people, and they will let you know if you can come. I went before, and it was very amusing; the warm-up was funny, Graham popped his head out in between slots and made unrecorded, unscripted jokes, and it was free too.
I’d also recommend Windsor Castle. It’s the oldest and the largest inhabited castle in the world, and it’s in really good condition. The town of Windsor is also quite nice, and Eton College is another place to visit nearby. Since you’ll be there in Summer you could go to Windsor Great Park, too. I’ve taken numerous tour groups to Windsor and they’ve always come away happy. If you want to see Hampton Court, then some coach companies do combined Windsor/Hampton Court day trips.
The Queen does actually live at Windsor in the Spring and early Summer, and you’ll know she’s home because they fly a different flag; you might well see her go past in car, but that’s as close as you’d get!
Sample other cities within a couple of hours of London that are worth visiting: Canterbury, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Oxford, Cambridge ( of the two, I prefer Oxford), and a place that I’d definitely recommend is Brighton. It has a pleasant beach - though it’s stony, not sandy - some outdoor entertainers, loads of beautiful, original shops in ‘the Lanes,’ (teenagers and adults would both like them), the Royal Pavillion, and of course the pier and funfair.
A slightly different way of travelling to these small towns would be to hire a mini-bus and driver. I can get a 16-seater minibus for £50 for the day, but it might be a little more for other people. Check out train fares for groups and family groups too; last Summer, buying tickets minutes before we left, I took more than 50 people to Brighton by train for just over £100!
In London, with more than ten of you, you’ll be able to get group discount tickets for some theatre shows. It depends which ones you want to see though - some of the most popular aren’t doing any special deals at all.
Personally, I detest the London Eye. It’s a picturesque addition to the London skyline, but up to 3 hours queing for the privelege of seeing the same things you can see from any tower block isn’t worth the money, IMO (and that is how long you’ll be queuing in the school holidays) There is also absolutely nothing to do while you queue - and you have to all queue, no place-saving. I’m surprised they don’t have Covent-Garden style licensed buskers or something.
For travel, with that many kids, get a Family Travelcard each day.
Perhaps, when you leave London, you could consider getting the train up to, say, York, staying there for a night or two, and then carry on up to Scotland? York is on the route to Edinburgh anyway. I’ve never been there, so can’t comment, but it sounds nice.
One thing to miss in Scotland is ‘the Highland Games.’ What they actually seem to be is small school fetes with a few local men running races and tossing cabers. It’s not one big Highland Games event, it’s lots of little local games. Loch Ness is lovely but is a bit further away than the other lochs, of which I’d recommend Loch Lomond - so big that it actually has tides.
Bear in mind that Scotland is colder than England. While you won’t need jumpers in England in Summer, you might at exactly the same time in Scotland.
Enjoy your trip!
Scotland’s Secret Nuclear Bunker
If you’re after a Spook & Gore tour I’d suggest one of the ones in Edinburgh’s old town would be better . At least most of the building involved there are still standing.
I’d drive past Stonehenge , it IS impressive and people would expect you to have seen it but then, go to Avebury. The Avebury Ring is so much more impressive - a huge circle of roughly shaped stones with a greater circumferance than Stonehenge and, most importantly, you can wander in and out of them, there are cottages built inside the ring and I think the pub has rooms. It’s free and you could let the various members of the group explore on their own.
If you hire a couple of cars you could do a circuit of the UK and Ireland - don’t worry too much about driving “on the wrong side of the road” - having the car set up for the road makes it seem natural quite quickly. Not sure if it would be easiest to hire different vehicles in Ireland (which uses the Euro of course) in Great Britain (England, Scotland & Wales).
Aplogies ofr the lack of links but here are some ideas.
Couple of days in London (you could always split up into mini groups) - if any of the kids are doing Shakespeare they should try to attend a performance at Shakespeare’s Globe, £5 for a standinng ticket and the nnovel layout of the theatre gets you beyond the ‘theare is boring’ mental block.
Drive west - keeping an eye out for the giant prehistoric chalk horses carved into some of the hillsides, stop off at Avebury and have a night in** Bath** (Roman ruins, Georgian archtecture, great shops).
Drive into Wales and spend the day enjoying the beaches of the Gower peninsular and / or explore a castle or two (Catell Coch is fairytail like and small, Caerphilly is a huge ruin). Then get the overnight ferry from Swansea to Cork.
Visit Blarney Castle, do a bit of shopping. If you’re short of time drive up to Dublin.
Day in **Dublin. **
Fly (no frills - Ryanair ?) to Glasgow and have a day there.
Drive up alongside Loch Lomond, across Rannoch moor, through **Glencoe **and into Fort William. If you have time you could take the stream train along to Oban on the coast. I think there’s a sea life centrre there for the younger ones.
Do the stuff that has to be done to fulfill your long held desires.
Couple of days in Edinburgh. Get a cheap flight (or overnight train - if they still run) back to London.
Et voilà.
BTW - only two dozen people in Wales ? Maybe but we got 15M sheep 
His show’s not on air at the moment, and AFAIK it’s not returning.
You can book in advance online, and avoid the queue. Or arrive first thing in the morning, rather than in the mid-afternoon rush.
Do you mean this in a sexual kind of way, Shirley?
'Cause if you do, I think y’all & LifeOnWry need to get a room.
**LifeOnWry **–i have a plan. You need-
[ul]
[li]An Inflatable Rubber Beach Horsie[/li][li]A Harpoon[/li][li]And a bus ticket to Loch Ness[/li][/ul]
Now, stop me if you’ve heard this one…
I wouldn’t particularly compare Camden Market, Camden Passage or Portobello Road with Maxwell Street. As others have said, Camden Market is very touristy, basically selling a version of bohemian London streetlife to foreign teenages. By contrast, Camden Passage and Portobello Road are predominately antique markets, are that bit less reflective of street fashion and have a more, um, mature browser in mind. My - nonexpert - impression is that the latter is the more touristy and certainly usually by far the more busier.
(For the record, my encounters with Maxwell Street were back in the early 90s, before the UIC proposals to expand southwards. What did eventually happen to the market?)
The latest on Maxwell Street. My encounters were primarily in the late 60s and early 70s. When I went back in the late 80s, it was NOTHING like it used to be. Man, I used to love it there…
I don’t think Camden Street would put me off - I’m pretty easy to entertain 
But I definitely want to hit those antique stores!
I thought of another question, about moneychanging - if we do Scotland, England and Ireland or Wales, can we change our money to Euros, are Euros accepted everywhere, or do we need different cash for different places?