next »

[sweetcider]

I'm going to a conference in Oxford in September.  I'm hoping/planning to stay a week after the conference to travel.  I don't yet have any particular plans.  So wise forumites, what do you recommend?  Do you have suggestions of guidebooks/websites/other resources?

[thundering_m]

Rick Steves is not bad.


If you are only there for a few days and it is your first time to visit England, and you are not likely to rent a car, you are in a perfect place because a full schedule is within walking distance plus the bus service is very good.

There's plenty to do in Oxford alone, but if you are interested in daytrips with a nostalgic touch, consider Blewberry not far south, riddled with little streams that inspired Wind in the Willows. In Lambourn near Wantage you can see Arabella's cottage and other Thomas Hardy landmarks. You'll also see horse farms of Dick Francis description. Picnic on the White Horse and the settings for Watership Down and Duncan Wood.

Head north to Coventry, one of my favorite cathedrals with the burnt out shell adjacent to the modern one housing the Graham Sutherland tapestry; nearby Kenilworth is delightful. 

For natural beauty, head further west to Gloustershire and Wales and seek out Simmon's Yat. And every pub along the way. But I digress. 

[wegie]

Have you been here before? Do you have preferences? Medieval fan or love contemporary stuff? Would run a mile from a museum? Big cities or small places? Mountains or the sea? Fashionable shops or furry animals?

Whilst in Oxford, do go to Blackwells. Even after the redesign to accommodate the crummy coffee shop, it still defines what an academic bookshop should be. Your task is to get out of there having spent less than a hundred pounds. Do visit the pubs in Oxford. If you've got time, get hold of a map that will let you navigate your way either down or up river to the Isis or up to the Perch. Don't go to the Trout at Godstow as it's an expensive tourist trap. If you like museums, Oxford has some of the best small museums in the country in the Ashmolean, Pitt Rivers and Natural History museum (say "hi" to the dodo). Hire a punt and punt up the Isis. Head up the Cowley Road to the Aziz for some of the best Indian food around (the service is atrocious) or have goat curry at the Hi Lo.

And that's just from somebody who doesn't actually like Oxford!

More seriously, if you're only going to be here a week, don't try to cram in everything. You're probably best off sticking to the London - Oxford - West Country triangle. 

[sweetcider]

Have you been here before? Do you have preferences? Medieval fan or love contemporary stuff? Would run a mile from a museum? Big cities or small places? Mountains or the sea? Fashionable shops or furry animals?

I have not been to England before.  As for preferences I prefer medieval to contemporary. I like museums but can get bored with art museums fairly quickly, but can linger for hours in places more focused on history.  I love small towns and quaint shops.  I'm not a shopper (with the exception of books).  I'd like to do some like hiking and see the country side.  I enjoy an occasional pub, but my travel companion is less interested in that.  I prefer to see less and enjoy it as opposed to attempting to do everything in one trip.

I'll be in Oxford for about a week for the conference.  After the conference I'll have another week for just travel.  (This is going to be my vacation for the year!)

Thanks for the suggestions this far! 

[inthelab]

My kids just returned from 3 weeks in the UK.  They visited and loved:
Devonshire (they stayed in a B&B on Dartmoor and explored the moor, Plymouth, and Exeter)
Scotland (the Isle of Skye, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling)
Wales (south and north shores; they stayed in Cardiff and Llandudno, explored Snowdonia and Caer n'y Avon)
London was OK; the Tower was the highlight for them; they did not make it to the Victoria & Albert Museum.

They like outdoors stuff and visited as many castles as they could squeeze in.

[llanfair]

Avebury isn't too far from Oxford, and rewards the trip.  Much better than Stonehenge, IMHO - you can walk among the stones.

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-avebury

Chime on the Cotswolds, Gloucester, Cheltenham.  If you have time, go into Wales; you're close to Monmouth and the Wye Valley, which is drop-dead gorgeous.  Tintern Abbey is easily reached by bus from Monmouth, and is a must-see.

http://www.monmouth.org.uk/Home/Default.aspx

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/wales/tintern-abbey.htm

[thundering_m]

If I were you and planning my first trip to London, I would be compelled to go to the British Museum, if only for a quick perusal (Rosetta Stone, Roman mosaics, Elgin marbles, Mildenhall silver, amphora of red on black and black on red... and whatever your icons are)

I particularly enjoy the nicely-within-walking-distance combination of the Tate Gallery (Turner et al; decent cafes downstairs) and Westminster Abbey (worth poking around for comparison to the chapels you will see in Oxford. Peak in the Close and Chapter House. You can see Big Ben and Parliament across the street and other landmarks. You can walk up to Trafalgar Square, feed the pigeons, admire Nelson's column.

Another treasure is a Christopher Wren-themed tour, not just of St. Paul's Cathedral but many many other fine architectural gems he designed. But then I particularly enjoy architecture and industrial archeology. Truth be told, I just enjoy Britain. Shame to have to interrupt the vacation with a conference...

A play in Covent Garden is lovely, but extremely pricey unlike the above which are all free with small donations. Hit the free stuff and you can justify a taxi. The underground is a lot of stairs for short hops; use the buses. Travel by train from Oxford to London and back.

A Thames boatride is fun to hear the patter and to consider a more common arrival than Heathrow, plus have a nice long sitdown from all that walking. But if you only do one thing on the water, go punting in Oxford.

[colette_capricious]

Everything Thunderin said. I love London. All of it. It seems like a shame to be so close to it and not visit!

The Thames Clipper is a cheap way to get the boat trip. I also recommend the hop-on, hop-off bus tour for a good look around.

As for theater tickets, you can go to http://www.lastminute.com/site/entertainment/theatre/ and get tickets for around 10 to 25 pounds, sometimes even with dinner. Last month I got tickets to Sunset Boulevard for 17 pounds. (Great play, BTW)  Or you can check the TCKTS booth in Leicester Square for same day shows.

Westminster Abbey was amazing. Isaac Newton's gravestone was there.  And the British Museum with the honest-to-god Rosetta stone - very cool!

Now I want to go back.

[llanfair]

Chime on the British Museum - it's fantastic and it's free, so if you take a few days in London, you can go back a time or two.  There's no way you can do it all in one go.

There are some extra-cool places that many visitors never see.  Think the Old Operating Theatre and Herb Garret; Greenwich and the Flamsteed Observatory; the Borough Market in Southwark.

http://www.thegarret.org.uk/

http://www.greenwichwhs.org.uk/

http://www.boroughmarket.org.uk/

St Martin's-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square has Concerts by Candlelight, which cost little and offer a wide range of magical music.  You can have supper in their Café in the Crypt, which has super food, reasonable prices, and the proceeds go to their outreach work.

http://www2.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/page/home/home.html

And a caution: the BA London Eye is a massive waste of time and money - you'll spend hours in a queue that you could be using much more enjoyably, and it's thoroughly overpriced to boot. 

[scotia]

If you are in London I recommend the Science Museum, but I am a geek (or is it a nerd? Or both?). I would also agree with heading out to Wales, though it does have a tendency to be a bit wet. I find the Cotswolds and bit too manicured and tame, but some of my friends love it.

If you want a longer jaunt by train you could take the scenic route up the West Coast mainline (it is scenic north of Lancaster, at least) to Edinburgh and then come back down the East Coast mainline to London via Durham and York. (In places the line does touch the coast, but generally the 'coast' bit is something of a misnomer - it merely refers to the east and West sides of England/Scotland).

[llanfair]

Great suggestion, Scotia - that's a beautiful train ride, especially (as you say) the Cumbria region.  Gorgeous even in bad weather, stunning in fair.

And York is a great city - the walls, the museums, the food, and Stonegate - and the Minster with its Roman crypt! Well worth a visit.

[atheistbunny]

If you'd like a very odd and historical museum in London, then try Sir John Soane's house (http://www.soane.org/). It is a VERY weird house full of this guy's lifetime of odd collections.

I second Avebury too. And parts of the Cotsowolds are lovely and very English, especially if you like the little picture book villages.

[frogfactory]

For theatre in London, you might like to check out some of the fringe black box theatres.  I don't know if the Metro (free newspaper) still has a listings section for 'Fringe' theatre, but Time Out magazine is a worthwhile investment.  Tickets for some sometimes really awesome and inventive shows go at £4-15 ish.  Hammersmith Riverside Studios is often a good bet, and I really like the Shunt theatre group (and their amazing performance space underneath London Bridge tube station).  For more mainstream (non-West End) stuff, the Old Vic in Waterloo is good.

That's assuming you're interested in seeing London and in theatre, of course.

And I second the recommendation for the candlelight concerts at St Martins-in-the-fields.

[hestia]

Bath, particularly if you like Jane Austen.  Lovely 18thC architecture; nice townhouse museum on the Royal Crescent (fun to watch the hot air balloons in the early evening from the lower lawn of the Royal Crescent).  You can give the Jane Austen Museum a miss, though.  here's also a great playground, but it doesn't sound as though you will need it.

As for London, the (relatively new) Tate Modern is fabulous--ever so much better for displaying art than the Gare (now Musee) d'Orsay.

[bookishone]

Oxford's own science museum is really good, too.