Travel: United Kingdom - General

[lovejoypeacce]

So excited!! Just booked my tickets to London this June on Emirates. Great promoton going on.


So now that tics are booked, I would appreciate if moms and dads here can give me some good pointers:

We will have about 14 days in total. Thinking of exploring Lake District and Scotland. Is it better to go on a tour package or self drive? if not, is it easy to use rails?

Is the road easy to navigate outsides of London?

Any recommendation of cheap hotels? For a family of 4, is it better for us to use an apt?

Any places die die must see and food die die must eat?

We are also thinking of catching musicals at west end…can’t wait!!

[Trina]

WOW!! That sounds so exciting....UK is always one of my favourite holiday spot.


I would suggest self-drive - very easy to navigate around (everything in English mah!) and can stop and see whenever you like. You should get a copy of the road directory when you rent the car (or use GPS). It's very very easy to drive around as we are on the same side of the road.

For our self-drive trip there, we flew to London and then changed to an internal flight to Edinburg. Must see at Edinburg are the castles (one of them is still being used by Queen E) and the toy museum. From Edinburg, we drove around Scotland (Inverness) and down to London with several stops along the way. Some of the stops:

- Chester - beautiful old town with tudor style houses
- Statford upon Avon - Shakespear's home
- Lake District - must stop by Windermere for Peter Rabbit's Museum
- Warwick - Warwick castle was great fun with actors doning traditional costumes, knights on horses, shooting matches etc
- Windsor - Windsor castle of course!!

For accomodation, I would suggest you try out the B&Bs - cheaper and nicer than hotels and comes with homecook breakfast. Alternatively you may want to check out Travelodge.

http://www.travelodge.co.uk/


For further information, you can check out this website:
http://www.visitbritain.sg/

Have fun planning!!

[cafelatte]

We used the rails. It was easy! Lake District is beautiful. If I can do it again, I’ll skip Scotland and spend more time in Lake District. The walks are just so lovely !


Do not miss musicals at west end ! It is just so different from watching musicals in Singapore.

[mummyjoyce]

You can consider taking the Eurotrain to Paris… it is very different and romantic compares to London. london is one of my favourite place … lovely old buildings and fond memories. My favourite is the BigBen.

[lovejoypeacce]

Thanks for all the replies~ I am getting excited already!!


Do you think it is better for us to take the rail to Lake District and then take a tour from there or it is possible for us to gon on ourselves? How many days should I spend in Lake District? Any thing we should not miss?

Can we go on to Edinburg from there? How many days should we allocate? Rail to Edinburg takes about 4 hours.

Can we rely on rails or is it better for us to self drive??

Apologies for so many questions.

thanks!!!

[smurf]

Hmm...the best way to see things is to drive. It is ok to drive since the direction are in English. Rail is ok, but you miss out a lot of sceneries, if there is time lah...if u just want to travel from one place to another, then go for rail...anyway, from one town to another is just 3-4 hours drive...


Paris in my opinion is not as romantic as it seems...lotsa dogshit on the pavement...(dunno whether change now, cos I went there 3 times before '01) and the french are not exactly the friendiest people...

[Trina]

Agree that it’s best to drive around - much easier to manage the luggage. And that also gives you flexibility to visit the smaller towns which are usually very lovely.

[mum03]

The best way is to drive, we go to U.K every year to visit my in law. We normally hire a car and drive around, its very east. Should try to go to stonehage and if possible try to see wales. Its beautiful. You could drive to scotland, and pls do miss the highlands, its one of the best in the world. Its picture perfect, and soo romatic.

I have never liked Paris, its dirty and full of dog poo (Hope it is change now) and never felt romantic at all, only felt miserable with the unfriendly people around, but on the other hand if you go to nice and the costal area the people are much more friendly. You never miss much in paris .

[Way2GO]

lovejoypeacce:

....can't wait!!

Ist time to UK?
Remember do not bring any meat products with you, even those for personal consumption.

Wear clean socks and shoes on departure from UK. :lol:

[starlight1968sg]

lovekidsverymuch:

Now why is that important??? :?

If I remembered correctly, you have to take off your shoes and socks when clearing a part of the immigration.