Here's a sneak peek to this week's episode.
Somewhere that we think that you really should go. And that is an area called Richmond, where you can find Hampton Court Palace and or Kew Gardens.
I'm Scott. And I'm Melissa. And we are the Sunshine Travelers. Our passion is travel and sharing our experiences with those who enjoy it as much as we do. sharing our experiences with those who enjoy it as much as we do, or those who want to learn more about travel, or even those who just want to live vicariously through our travel stories. No matter where you fall along that journey, get ready to hear about our first-hand experiences as we visit some of the most interesting and amazing places on Earth. In this week's episode, we want to highlight some options if you have been considering a trip to the UK, but don't want to spend all of your time in the city. There are so many options for travelers from across the world, and you will learn that there are just as many options outside of London that you're going to want to add into your travel destination list. Even if you live in the UK, this episode will definitely have you thinking about options for day and weekend trips to visit places that are straight from our recommendations. So grab your train tickets and let's get started.
Scott, this is an episode that I've actually wanted to do for a long time. Because through various trips that we've taken to the UK, we've had the opportunity to explore a tiny bit of England outside of London and think that it is something that people definitely need to experience. To give a little bit of perspective about how travelable, I guess, the UK and England specifically is, it's roughly the size of the state of Oregon or the state of Ohio in landmass, about 94,000 square miles. Yeah. And so in the
the U.S., when we think about traveling across state, there are some states like Texas and California that you automatically are like, oh, those are huge states. But Ohio, Oregon, Georgia, like those are relatively smaller states that could be traveled across the state in less than a day. Right. So then when thinking
when thinking about, I mean, there's so many things to see in England, in the UK combined, that it's doable, right? And some of these things that we're going to talk about, like you can hit some of the highlights and then you can see some of the things like on the way. And sometimes when you're traveling in the U.S., it's just not possible. You're not going to pass, I don't know, to get to your destination because it would be hours and hours and hours out of the way. Yeah, we've joked
we've joked before, we've talked to people from outside the U.S. and they say, oh, when they come to the U.S., they want to do a road trip and they want to go to Orlando and they want to go to New Orleans and they want to go to New York City and they want to go to Los Angeles and they want to do all of that in a road trip all in a week. Yeah, or even a couple of
or even a couple of weeks. And neither of those are even, you know, fathomable. But what we're going to talk about today, you know, you're in London, you have, you can, you can make a few extra days and do one of these or a kind of a combination of these to, to see some of, you know, the UK outside of London. So what we've
done is we've chosen our top five locations. And for each one, we're going to talk about how do you get there, some options that are available once you're there. And then just based on the times that we visited, what we think would be a good time to go. But, you know, you can never hone that in in England, I think. Right. Because you just never know what the weather is going to
you just never know what the weather is going to be. So we'll talk about how to be prepared for that as
well. So in this episode, we're going to talk about maybe if you want to rent a car or take a train and some various options for transportation, maybe you want to do an organized tour, right? We'll talk about all of those. But before we do, I want to talk a little bit about Trippiamo. So you can rent a car and drive confidently when you travel the world with Tripiamo. Tripiamo is enabling travelers to roam safely and confidently across the planet by changing the way that people learn and prepare for global travel. Their comprehensive and interactive country-specific guides, created by travel experts and local driving schools, prepare you for driving abroad. Unlike a GPS, Tripiamo is specifically designed to teach travelers what they need to know to properly and confidently drive anywhere in another country. Tripiamo provides the most extensive knowledge available for international travelers. In addition to driving information, Tripiamo also has a guide for the UK on taking public transportation, including the tube, trains, and buses. Visit sunshinetravelers.com slash tripiamo. That's T-R-I-P-I-A-M-O to learn more.
Okay, so let's start with if you are staying in London and you just want to stay in London, right? You want to keep your hotel in London. There is somewhere that we think that you really should go. And that is an area called Richmond, where you can find Hampton Court Palace and or Kew Gardens. You probably have a hard time doing both of those things in the same day, but we highly recommend both of those. It's about 20 to 30 minutes by train. Definitely wouldn't recommend renting a car to do this because that would just be probably more of a hassle, but taking the train out to one of those places and visiting for a day.
So we had been to this area before we were familiar with the Ted Lasso series on Apple TV, right? And so when you were watching this with me, you were like, oh, wait, we've been there. We've been there. We've done this. We've done that. Yeah, I noticed I just like a couple of places just like caught my eye of filming locations
I noticed I just like a couple of places just like caught my eye of filming locations that they had. And I was like, oh, wait a minute. Oh, Richmond, you know, like then it was like, I don't know why the pieces like came together. But so if you, I guess two kind of different things. So Kew Gardens, if you love gardens and botanical gardens, like you literally can spend the whole day at Kew Gardens. You know, so many things to see and, you know, just walk and you can have lunch there. And then, you know, visit the little town. And then also Hampton Court Palace. So we talked about that in another one of our London episodes. So I'll link that so you can get more information. But that was just an incredible historical palace. We got lucky visited in the spring. So they were having the Tulip Festival. So I mean, a little bit chilly weather, but like we just had a nice day, right? Bundled up. We were fine. And then, of course, you see the inside. And so that was just a fantastic. So both of those, you get to go just a little bit outside of London and experience like the little town where they are set in or, you know, where they're located, I guess I should say. And so you can, you know, you could walk around there and, you know, have lunch or get a coffee or something like that, and then go visit these other places. My other suggestion about, it really would be for either of these, is that then you could go either, I guess you could go either part of the way there, but we did it on the way back. We found a little boat that was just doing like a little, like it was almost like I a, mean, it was transportation, right? On the Thames. So we just, you know, paid our fare and it took us a little bit of the way and we had to, you know, catch the train, you know, the rest of the way back in. But that just made a fun day, a fun afternoon on both of those occasions. So if you want to experience that, but not go too far outside of London. Yeah. And both of those
And both of those places, you'd need to give them enough time to really experience them. So Kew Gardens, we roamed around almost a whole day at Kew Gardens. They have so many different areas that are set up. It's almost hard to believe that it's that close to London. This park is so massive and expansive. Great Victorian architecture in those old greenhouses. But then you walk out into these gardens and they have all these different areas set up. And, you know, you were almost transformed from like one place to another. And you had to, you know, think back and say, am I still in the same place, you know, as I was when I got here? Right. Because they were so different.
Right. And, you know, kitchen gardens and Q Palace, which is like a smaller place where Royals lived like a long time ago. And then they also have like a treetop canopy walk. I mean, it's massive. Like, I mean, you could you could spend like you said, you spend a whole day like don't plan. I wouldn't say plan on something else and have to rush back. I mean, you might go back into London for dinner or something like that. But pick one of those two. Right. And plan to spend the entire day. And what I love about places in the UK specifically is they always have things that are geared toward kids, right? So they'll have some kind of kid scavenger hunt or, you know, little stations set up. Like everything is always has, you know, great for adults, but they also make it kid friendly
too. Well, the next place that we're going to explore is Windsor. Now, Windsor is one of those places that we've actually been to a couple of times. And we just really enjoy going there. It's not far outside of London, about 50 minutes by train. And that's how we've pretty much always gotten there is we've taken the train. A lot of people commute from this area into London as well. So they've got great infrastructure set up for those trains for people to get back and forth into the city. Yeah. So we
So we did this twice, like you said, the first time we did it as a day trip. And then the second time we actually spent the weekend before we left the UK. And so that's it. Windsor would be a great place to like bookend your trip. Now, I know people are typically excited to get to London, right? So want to do London first, but then maybe right before you leave. And here's why. Windsor is actually super close to London Heathrow. So it is a quick taxi ride or Uber or something like that. Call them from your hotel in Windsor and you're right there at the airport in like 10 or 15 minutes. So you don't have to go all the way back into London or anything like that. So just keep that in mind as well.
When you're in Windsor, obviously the main attraction there is Windsor Castle. And, you know, that's where Queen Elizabeth, she liked to spend a lot of her time when, you know, she wanted to get out of the city. They would go to Windsor Palace. And, you know, we've actually even been there a couple of, I think both times that we were there, she was in residence. Yeah. So the first
Yeah. So the first time we went, they have a section where it's always open regardless. And, but part of it was closed. And then the second time though, it was open, like every part of the visitor part was open. And what we were really interested to see, I think especially was the St. George's Chapel, right? Because that's where, you know, a lot of the royal weddings have taken place, the funerals have taken place. A lot of the royals are buried there as well. So that's just a neat place to get to see and just have the whole experience, right? Because you have the guards and you have the different changing of the guards there. And then of course, beautiful gardens and, you know, it kind of overlooks the surrounding area as well. So that would be kind of the highlight is to look and maybe try to plan your trip and make sure. I don't know because we haven't been like super recently and since, you know, the king was coronated, like, is it more open? You know, if he's not there, like it is it typically always open but you might want to look just to see and of course they have a bunch of events and stuff there but one thing that we really enjoyed in Windsor was walking what they call the long walk and if you if you saw the funeral or anything like that they brought Queen Elizabeth down that long walk but you can so it goes to you, from Windsor to a road, and then it actually crosses that road and goes on up this hill. And so we really enjoyed that. We spent a couple of hours and we joked because this was in the spring and it was a nice day, but we joked because on that long walk, we actually experienced like all four seasons, right? When the sun would come out, we would get quite warm, right? We'd shed our jackets and then like the wind would blow or the sun would go away. I think we had a little bit of a shower and it just felt like we had like all four seasons. We joked about that. It actually even snowed for just a
that. It actually even snowed for
few minutes. Or like sleeted maybe. It felt like, yeah, like snow or sleeted or something, you know, very cold snow. But that was just a lot of fun and lots of people on nice days, lots of people were walking that as well. And when you walk that, you'll realize how close that is to London Heathrow because you literally have those. Big jumbo jets.
minutes. Or like sleeted maybe. It felt
jumbo jets. The
The huge, yeah, A380s and all those things like going right over your head. So that's one thing that don't miss. And then I would also say taking a walk over to the nearby town of Eaton that has the famous, I guess it's the boys boarding school, right? Where lots of famous British people, royals have gone to school such as George Orwell, Prince William and Prince Harry. It was established, what, in the 1400s, I think, by King Henry VI. So just a lot of history there. Now, you obviously can't go into the school, but you can walk around the outside. You can visit the town. You can walk over the river. So that's just a fun place for a walk. And that's one thing I think about the UK, too, is just being able, when the weather's nice, being able to just get out and walk there. I think those were the two notable things. But then, of course, there's lots of little shops and High Street and dining.
Yeah, actually, it's more than just little shops. I believe there was an H&M there. The first trip that we went, we spent most of our time inside of Windsor Castle and seeing the sights there. And then a little bit of the time just into the town of Windsor, and seeing the sights there. And then a little bit of the time just into the town of Windsor, which was connected. And so you kind of get an idea of how maybe the culture of the castle and then the little town outside of the castle walls. And so you saw a lot of that, places where you could go have high tea, lots of gift shops and those type of things. But then on the second trip, that's where we explored out more. We did the long walk. And you weren't kidding when you said, you know, a lot of people do it. I mean, the long walk was literally crowded with people who were out for their walk. with people who were out for their walk because, you know, there's parts of the day where it was really nice and a lot of families out there and stuff like that. So, you know, there's a lot to see and do in this Windsor area. Now, if you don't want to take the train out there, I'm certain there's also, you know, some kind of tour that you can arrange from London to go to Windsor Castle.
Yes, for sure. Like tons of those and some of the other places we're going to talk about too. But if you have the opportunity, that is a great place to stay and just get to experience that too when, you know, a lot of go to the pubs at night or, you know, that are just right in that area.
And so also in this episode, we're going to talk about some main towns and areas, but there's some things that you might want to stop and see on your way or spend a few hours doing that would be in the same vicinity. And that's how we like to do it, right? So when we travel, we like to stop along the way, see a few things, get out, stretch your legs. You don't have to necessarily go just straight to these places. Give yourself enough time to see and explore along the way. Also note that you can do a lot of these things without having a car too. So, you know, like I said, we took the train out to Windsor. You could drive if you had a car from the city. I don't recommend renting a car in London. But, you know, if you went from the airport, you could get a car, you could drive out to Windsor, you could see some of those areas and then return the car and then go back in or go into London. Yeah.
Or make Windsor a stop on the way to some of these other places, too. Right. some of these other places too, right? So if you rented a car, then you could get, because I'm sure there were car parks and stuff too. You could, you know, explore Windsor for a little while and then go on to some of these other places as well. So let's start with
start with the Cotswolds. Okay. So if you are
So if you are driving, which I think for the Cotswolds, I would highly recommend that you rent a car. It would be very difficult. You could probably see some of the main towns and walk. I mean, unless you were doing a Cotswolds walk. Now that is a thing and you can book it through a company or some companies. And I'll put some links to that in the show notes if you're interested. So because they all actually have a Cotswolds way. And if you don't know this about the UK, there are actually like public walking paths on, I mean, the land would belong to people, but like they have to leave these right away paths along the edges of their pastures and stuff like that. They're all over the UK, but specifically the Cotswolds walk. You could walk the Cotswolds. Now you would want to use one of these companies probably and arrange your, you know, them to carry most of your baggage and arrange your hotels and stuff like that. So that is a possibility. But I would say probably for most people, if you just have a couple of days, you're going to want to rent a car and go get to see like all these little towns. And so when we did the Cotswolds, I actually had looked up a lot of stuff in one of Rick Steve's books, and he described it as joy riding the Cotswolds. I mean, he would say, go from this town to that town. Some of the towns are big enough to where you're going to have more food options, more hotel options, or, you know, bed and breakfast options, shops, things like that. But then some of them literally are just really where people live, you know, might be a pub or two, might be a church that has like a little gift shop or something like that. But most of those, you're just going to want to kind of park, walk around, you know, take some pictures and stuff like that and then just move on to the next town. So it really is joy riding the Cotswolds.
We found that in the Cotswolds, we were there during, I guess, just really nice weather and a good time to for people to visit. time to for people to visit. And like some of these little towns that you wanted to stop in and see some of the attractions and stuff like that, you really had a hard time finding parking or you had to park way outside of town and walk back in. And there'd be tour buses there and all kinds of stuff. Yeah, so
so that is true. And I guess I forgot about the tour buses. So you you probably could also then take a like a tour of the Cotswolds and see. It would just give you a lot more flexibility kind of if you did it on your own. But that's true. That is a possibility. One thing I wanted to mention, if you are interested in going, Cotswolds are like kind of the start of them is about an hour from London. You could also stop if you were interested in stopping and seeing like Oxford. That's somewhere you could kind of stop on the way. Of course, you could stay in Oxford too, just to see what Oxford is like and, you know, maybe have a lunch, time for lunch and a coffee or something like that, just to see that town. So we went to the Cotswolds in the summer. It was specifically in July. So I would say like late spring to summer, because I really feel like having the flowers and the wildflowers and the flowers in front of a lot of the cottages is a big is a big draw as well wouldn't you say yeah definitely so and you know that was the
definitely so and you know that was the thing is you just gotta kind of keep that in mind is everyone's seeing the same pictures and things like that that you have out on social media and then you have all these people from all over the world that are trying to get those same photos.
Right. Yeah.
Pack a little patience in one of those busy areas.
in one of those busy areas. That's true. And I would say probably those tours like hit up the larger ones and the most like most popular ones. My favorite one. And so make sure this is one you don't miss, was probably Castle Combe. I would believe that's how you pronounce it. I mean, there wasn't really much there at all.
Are you really trying to pronounce a British word?
to pronounce a British word? No. But I think we maybe found like there was a little pub or something. But other than that, there was very little in a little church. There was very little in that town. But I think that was the one that I enjoyed that was like one of the most beautiful. And the other thing I would recommend is probably as you stop in some of these to maybe just ask for recommendations too, right? We on a whim, we stopped at a place called Burton on the Hill. That was a old house. Like you didn't go in the house, but it was like, we went in the gardens and because of the time of the year that we were there, like that was just a great to like walk around the gardens and see those. But you could, you know, in the town, you could ask for recommendations because throughout this whole area, there's going to be just tons of churches and houses and manors and gardens and places that you could stop. So just getting recommendations and where to eat. The other place that we randomly saw that we stopped because it was in the middle July, was a lavender farm. And it was specifically called Cotswolds Lavender. And we were just driving and I saw a sign for it. And I just love lavender and lavender fields. And so we stopped and went, spent a couple of hours. I think you probably paid to be able to go in, you know, walk around and take your pictures and stuff like that. And then they had things you could buy, you know, the essential oil and just different things like that.
Yeah, I think you could like pick your own lavender bundles as well if you wanted to.
Yeah, so I would say in that summer months like that, that would be the time that you could, you know, go see those things. But just kind of asking for recommendations. Because the other thing too is that like it really might depend, you know, what time things are open. It might just depend on like where you are and when you drive through, I would say that in these smaller towns, just be aware that a lot of them are not going to serve, like they'll have lunch until like maybe two or two 30. Right. And then there's no lunch after that. And then they'll have dinner, like they'll serve like a dinner, maybe from like 6 to 8 or 6 to maybe not. But just like being aware of that, like don't wait late to eat, like you might in London or something like that. That's always our warning for outside of London.
Yeah, especially if you start searching or Googling the hours of these pubs, the pub may stay open until 10 or 11, but the kitchen closes early. So after, say, 8, 830, the only thing you can get from there is, you know, a beer or something.
Yeah. So what you're saying, Scott, is I shouldn't go through the names of these towns that I have listed out here. They have such adorable names. And I would, you're probably right. You know, you're
know, you're going to get a text message if you do.
message if you do. butcher Like, But them. they just like, you're have, probably You right. you're know, going to get a text message if you Like butcher do. them. But like they just have, you know, upper this and lower this and in marsh and on the hill. I like just such cute little, just cute little names too. So that's just a lot of fun. So. You want to talk about that one
So. You want to talk about that one place that we stayed at that was the converted cow shed?
Yeah. So I do. It was very cool. So it was actually called the cow shed and i think we had found it on booking.com and which is a barn yeah so it was a barn now but it was very nicely done it was very nicely done it was more of like a bed and
is a barn yeah
it was a barn now but it was very nicely done it was very nicely done it was more of like a bed and breakfast i think they did have a breakfast included like you could and you could get it like you could kind of get it in a in a bag to go you could actually order lunches too like if you were going to you know, doing some of this or going on one of these walks or hikes, you could actually order lunch for them. But yeah, they had taken these old cow sheds and converted it into a bedroom bathroom combination, very immaculately decorated, very nice bathrooms. But yeah, it was just a really unique concept. They still had part of it was like a working farm, but not with these cow sheds. The only thing... So we were
So we were there, you know, July.
So we
Yeah.
And I think that's maybe where you're about to go. The one thing that we would say is in July, the UK does have a couple of weeks that they randomly may get some nice warm weather. And we were there.
We were there. And it wasn't so like it wasn't so bad like to be outside like it was hot, but not like in the southeast U.S. hot, not that kind of humidity. But we're just not used to it for sleeping, let's say. So I think we went to so they have a place called B&O that's like a Home Depot, same colors, the orange and white, whatever, same, and bought a box fan. And we had actually had it in the previous town that we were into and then took it to this place. But just because at night, you just, you know, no ceiling fans that we're used to, no airflow. So having that, so just be prepared. I mean, it was worth whatever it was, 13, 15 pounds. And then we just left it there as a gift. So for them, but. But I
I mean, there's a reason why they don't have fans and air conditioning is because for majority of the year, 90 plus percent of the year, they don't need it. Yeah. And I wouldn't
say like, I mean, it wasn't just like, you know, miserably hot or anything like that. It's just different from what we are used to. The other thing that I was going to say is that while it was convenient to the Cotswolds, it wasn't like it was right in one of those towns because it was a farm. And so my suggestion would be to see if you could find one like maybe in one of the towns, because then we would have to drive back there at night and then drive kind of back instead of you know stopping and and the other thing is if you don't mind doing like packing up all your stuff like you might be interested in staying at a couple of different places right and if you are really adventurous not you know booking ahead of time just seeing that day you know where you are and seeing and that would probably just depend on you know the time of And if you think you can, you know, kind of maybe look ahead of time and if stuff isn't booked up, that you would be safe to do that. Then if you're
willing to go just a little bit further north, you could visit Stratford-upon-Avon. That's the famous birthplace of William Shakespeare. And so. Yeah, for
sure. That is definitely still on my list. For some reason, we have never made it to Stratford-upon-Avon, and I definitely want to go see that. So a different trip from London is going and spending a couple of days in the town of Bath. And so a couple of things on the way that you could go and see if you're interested in seeing Stonehenge, if you haven't done that, that would be kind of on the way there. And now I would say you probably want to book that ahead of time and do some kind of time tickets. Back when we went, like, I don't know, it was just that wasn't really a thing to have to do that yet. But we got there and it was actually fairly busy. And so we ended up going into like it was like a long line, I guess, to buy tickets like they had them, but you just kind of had to wait in line. So I went into like the members area and just talk to them because if you like bought the bought the membership, you could get into all these other places. And then it was also like maybe like Express Lane or Fast Track Lane or something like that. And in that same trip, when we went to Stonehenge, we were also going to York, which we're going to talk about in a minute. And then we were going up into Scotland, which we could get some discounts there and do some fast track stuff. So that ended up being worth it. So that might be something that you want to look at just as a suggestion for London and the UK as a whole is to buying one of these passes. They have a couple of different ones. Specifically, there is one called the English Heritage that Stonehenge is a part of. There's one for the Hampton Court Palace that's also good at Kensington and some other places that is the historic royal palaces. We've joined that before that you can go into the Tower of London and stuff like that. So I'm going to put some links to those. That might definitely be worth looking into. That English Heritage Pass also has an Overseas Visitors Pass that's good for, I think you can buy it for like a week or two weeks and get into a lot of these places. So you could actually save some money. And I think kids are free when you have one of those. So I'll put some links to those because that was helpful. So we actually ended up buying that when we went to Stonehenge just so that we could get in a little bit quicker. And if you've done Stonehenge or so that we could get in a little bit quicker. And if you've done Stonehenge or if you want to kind of compare and contrast close by from Stonehenge. I remember at
And if you've done Stonehenge or if you want to kind of compare and contrast close by from Stonehenge. I remember at Stonehenge, we were sitting or we were standing there and we looked over to our side and up walked former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich while we were standing there. And so, you know, that was kind of neat is seeing him there. I think he was maybe on some type of tour and had a tour guide and stuff like that. But we got to, you know, because we're from Georgia, he's from Georgia, we got to introduce ourselves and, you know, say hello. So that was kind of a neat thing at Stonehenge.
Yeah, that was neat. Just, to yeah, see somebody like, that's oh, Newt Gingrich. And I yeah, get at Stonehenge. that Yeah, was neat. Just, to yeah, see somebody like, that's oh, Nick and Gretchen. Yeah, I get to talk to him. Yeah, that was neat.
I get to talk to him. Yeah, that was neat. And then like that former co-worker of mine that was like, oh, I wouldn't waste my time going to Stonehenge.
So we did run into somebody. And so that's why I'm always so hesitant, like about saying, oh, this is worth going to or this is not worth going to. Because like until you go see these places for yourself. Right. But he did say, yeah, that's overrated and whatever. Go to some of these other ones instead. And so you may or may not know that there are other ones in the UK and one specifically that's close by in the town of Avebury. On a different trip, we got to do that. And it was actually in combination of going to Bath, which is what we're going to talk about in a second. But completely different experience, right? So you go to this little town of Avebury, you find a place to park, and you literally just walk out into these fields. I think they have some maps and stuff like that. But you just walk out into these fields and can walk around, get close to the stones, which you cannot do at Stonehenge. You know, walk amongst them. And of then, walk course, amongst And then them. of course, you're, you're in a setting, then where you're in the little town of Avery, we watched a cricket match for a little while, I think we probably had some lunch. So it's just a completely different experience. So both of those would be doable if you didn't, like you weren't in a rush to go to bath, and you like wanted to spend the day getting there. And then, you know, had a couple of days there. It's interesting to kind of compare and contrast that. We have like the cows were just out there. Like they're just like that is there. These ancient stones are, you know, in their grazing field. Yeah, in their pasture.
field. Yeah,
So there's no charge. Then there was no charge.
Then there was no charge. Basically what these walking paths are is, you know, Melissa said that they cut across people's private lands, but there's an agreement that they're made available to the public. And so they have these gates and there's lots of signs warning you to remember to shut the gate or either the gates designed in a certain way where people can go in, but then the animals couldn't come back out. Or you just walk across a pasture and watch your step.
Yeah, that's true. And watch your step. So that's definitely. So that would be two completely different experiences. So I would never say don't go to Stonehenge because, I mean, it's Stonehenge, right? To go see that. But if you have a chance, you have the time to also go just kind of compare it to the experience in Avebury as well. So that was that was neat. So, like I said, we did that on the way to Bath. So Bath in total is about two and a half hours from London. Bath is historically significant for several different reasons. And first of all, it has the most well-preserved examples of Roman baths in the world. So it was actually funny when we went there because we actually did it on our long trip through Europe. And so we had been in Spain and seen the Roman ruins. And we had been in Italy, of course, and seen the Roman ruins. And so then here we find ourselves in the UK in Bath and again. And so and it was definitely so we had seen some of the way that they would have had the baths in some of these other places, but they obviously were not as well preserved. So they've preserved these and you can kind of see like the stones and where the floor is. And of course, they've got actually parts of it where the you know, they've got water, you know, filled in these places. What was your favorite thing, Scott, would you say about the town? So you mentioned the fact that we had already seen on this trip all of these
you mentioned the fact that we had already seen on this trip all of these Roman ruins around the world. So literally by the time we got to Bath again, it was like, oh great, more Roman ruins. It was neat because they did a really good job of explaining the culture and the history of why these baths were so important, part of the community and stuff like that. So I thought that was really good. But then there's some other tremendous and great architecture there, like the Royal Crescent and the Circus. Those are places that you don't want to miss as well. And so, you know, the Royal Crescent was these apartments. You know, I've never thought about royals living in an apartment. It's almost kind of counterintuitive. But, you know, when we say apartment, these are really nice homes that are connected. And so it was this crescent-shaped group of apartments where different royal families and upper class, I guess, would have lived. Yeah. Lords and ladies and people in
Lords and ladies and people in the government and different things like that. Yeah. Just people with titles as well. And I don't guess they lived
lived there. I guess this would have been like a place where they went to vacation. Right. So they would they would go there and then they would be in London and
So they would they would go there and then they would be in London and then they got right. But this was, during that time period, was a very fashionable place to be as well. Constructed in the late 1700s. And what is so cool about it is the stone, the limestone that it is made out of is quarried locally. And just the lightness of the color is just absolutely gorgeous, especially like at sunrise and sunset when the light hits that bath stone is what they call it at a certain time. So definitely want to see that right as well. And going into the Abbey, they have a church there that's just gorgeous stained glass that you want to also go in. And I think the other reason that like a lot of people might know like stories about Bath is if they're Jane Austen fans, right? So she lived there in the early 1800s. And some of the books, her novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion are set there. So there's a Jane Austen Center and Museum and exhibits, costumes, tea rooms, stuff like that. So if you're a Jane Austen fan, that's a big deal. So a lot of those stories, like you were saying, with the different classes and just the fashionableness of being there and stuff like that. Lots of shops, though, and not only quaint little shops, but it is also a shopping destination. Because I would say Bath in that area is a bigger city, right? So you're going to find a lot of shopping,, you know, bigger chain stores and stuff as well. So the River Avon is there. And so there's a famous bridge there, the Pulteney Bridge that you can and you can take like Little River. You know, it's like an arch bridge and then you can take Little River. I think the thing
the thing that stands out to me is I remember we booked a hotel room and I swear it was like being in a train car yes it was a very small
small hotel so that's probably another one where I would try to find more of a like a b&b because it was a very it was more like a modern hotel but it was like yeah like I think the bed was between the wall and the window and yeah it was tiny which it's common, you know, in the UK, but maybe, uh, maybe more of a bed and breakfast or something. So let's move
move on. And the next destination that we're going to talk about in the final destination is going to be York.
Yeah. So York is a place that you had actually been to previously. And when you were doing some work in the, in the Northern part of the UK, and you had cause said, I was on a trip that I came with you and you were doing some work in the northern part of the UK and you had said, because I was on a trip that I came with you and you were like, go to York for the day. You're absolutely going to love it. And then we'll come meet you in the evening.
You know, as I think back, I believe one of the people that had gone over there with me from the US had just, you know, done a bunch of research in the area. They were really more focused, I think, on the things that we're going to do after work, where I was really focused on the work that I was there for. And so, you know, and this was before Melissa had, you know, opened my eyes to, you know, making part of my work travel be fun. You know, I was just going there, going to the office, you know, maybe going to somewhere to eat and then back to the hotel. And so in the afternoons, they were like, you know, we should take the train to York. And so we did. And we walked around there. And so that was where I came up with the idea of, hey, Melissa, this is somewhere you would like. Go up there, spend the day, and then we'll meet you in the afternoon
yeah so we should mention so from london it is only two and a half hours by train it would take you about four hours to get there by car so just be aware that like a lot of times you might be able to get faster by train especially like somewhere like york right where like you would go through york probably to get to the northern part like up into Scotland and stuff too. So you're going to have some of the faster trains. And I would say like if this was your like you wanted to go to York and, you know, stay and then come back to London to leave or you wanted to go to York and stay a couple of days or a day on your way to Scotland, that would be a great either of those would be great, and you won't need a car in York. Yeah, and you might be asking
and you might be asking yourself, why York? And it's just a great, I would say, well-preserved medieval city. And it's still got a lot of the old wall around the city. And you can, matter of fact, you can go and walk on parts of the wall up on the top and have some great views of the city.
So York Minster, the church is just phenomenal. And so I'd say if you have an opportunity to go in. And so unfortunately, that's probably something that you didn't get a chance to do because that's typically open, you know, earlier in the day. And they would have and then, you know, later in the afternoon might have an even song. But York Minster, but even seeing it from the outside, right, is phenomenal. The other thing is that you had told me don't miss going on, there's a street, I believe it's called, it's called the Shambles. And it's just like the really, really old buildings. And so it's what you would associate with the Shakespearean, right? So the wood beams with the white. And there are so many of them are just like crooked and they're like stuck, you know, stuck together in between each other. So that's a neat. And of course, now they are, you know, popular little shops and coffee shops and places to eat and stuff like that. But and walk in the wall. There's also Clifford's Towers there. There's also a Viking Center. So just like the history to learn about that history as well. This would be a fun place, I think, to do like a ghost tour or a ghost walk in the evenings.
walk in the evenings. Yeah. Well, even just a historical walk, right? We did it on our own, just kind of roamed around. But if we had a guided tour, walking tour of the city, I think that would be really cool. Yeah. So I'm sure there's a lot of
Yeah. So I'm sure there's a lot of those. So I would say book a local walking tour earlier, you know, early in the trip or early in the day so that then you can ask for recommendations of places to eat and things like that as well. We have been in May. I don't know if you went another time of the year. So it's just one of those times where and then of course, as you get, you know, further north, you know, it might be a little bit cooler. So I would just say, you know, having your all your layers and preparation for inclement weather, just in case, but just a very neat place for it would be neat to stay. So neither of us have stayed there overnight, but it would be a great place to stay overnight. And the trains run all the time. So we do have a funny story about that is I think that we, I think at that time of the night, the trains probably ran back to where we were going at like on the hour or something like that. So we like barely missed the 11 o'clock p.m. train. And so then had to wait like a whole hour for the 12. But just so you know, like the trains would run, you know, late. So late so then you could you know i don't know about going back into london you know that time of night but you know there are trains that are late and this is another place where i think we got really lucky we like got into a pub where we could still order food like right at the last minute so another place we're just being aware of that you know you can always get a pint but if you want to eat yeah i you're going to have places where you can go and eat like just
going to have places where you can go and eat like just standard fair restaurants. But the majority of the places around there are going to be different pubs. And then they'll have the, you know, various pub food. So you can get some fish and chips or ale pies or something like that. Yeah, any
any of those yummy things. And one other quick mention is if you're up in that area and you we are, mentioned Jane Austen, but if you're a Bronte Sisters fan, visiting the town of Hayworth is another place. You can see the Bronte Museum and the cemetery and take one of the walks close by. Now that is a place where you could take a train and then kind of take a bus and then walk there. But having a car would make it a lot faster and easier as well. Well, we've been incredibly blessed with
blessed with spending so much time in the UK over the last 10 to 15 years. And I think we've been able to see and do more because of the amount of time that we've spent there. But, you know, we hope that you'll consider adding one or more of these places on to your visit to the UK. Yeah. So then just a couple of suggestions about what to pack is always you want to
a couple of suggestions about what to pack is always you want to have comfortable walking shoes and, you know, they wear tennis shoes and what they call trainers like pretty much all the time, right? Because it's like you have the cobblestone streets, especially in a lot of these places. So just be prepared for that rain jacket, you know, maybe an umbrella. I think they typically just rely on having, you know, a good rain jacket. And I would also say layers, right? So if you have a jacket, just depending on the time of the year, keep some gloves in your pocket. I have the gloves that I bought, had to buy in Windsor because we did have some snow. I, you know, I think even if it wasn't on the long walk day, now that, you know, I'm saying about those gloves, I think it was snowing that one day, you know, have have a, a cap that you can put you on, know, I'm saying about those gloves, I think it was snowing that one day, you know, have a have a cap that you can put you on, know, have a scarf you can put on and have a jacket you can take off and just, you know, just be prepared to shed them and put them back on as the sun comes and goes. The other thing that we would definitely say is bring a portable phone charger with you because you are going to use your phone a lot, like for directions and, you know, the train schedule. If you know, if you're taking the train or something like that, or your GPS, also taking pictures. And then a lot of these historical sites that you might stop in, they have a lot of them have free audio guides, but they are, you can connect to them like on your phone as well. So just so that you don't miss out on that and like worry about your battery having one of those portable phone chargers. I think one
one thing that I'd add to that is headphones. Because of the fact that a lot of these sites, you just use your phone and they have the audio guide, you're going to want to set headphones as well.
London is one of those places I think we can visit over and over again. We love to use it as a gateway to Europe from the U.S. Do you have a favorite spot outside of London that you would add to this list? Send me an email scott at sunshinetravelers.com. We are always inspired by your travel stories. For
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