Devon and Cotswolds - General Travel - Tartan Army Message Board Jump to content

Devon and Cotswolds


ironbrew

Recommended Posts

Almost embarrased to start a thread. Does anyone read travel section?

Anyway, going to be spending some time in Bath and Torquay this summer. Work but with some time off too. Not much time in Bath. Already know the city but would like to see Cotswolds. Any recommended villages that are easily accessible by public transport from Bath? Looked for tour from Bath but limited options. Is bristol worth a visit for 4 or 5 hours?

From Torquay going on Round Robin to nearby towns by boat,rail and ferry one day. Any other suggestions? Exeter or Plymouth worth a visit?  Any villages easy to get to by public transport? Coulñdn`t find trip to Dartmoor except private car trip.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wouldn't claim to know that part of the world spectacularly well, but I've travelled to most of the football grounds around there in my time & have a vague sense of what it's like. My general take on it is that there's a lot of fairly quaint kind of places but not much that's an obvious 'to do'.

Stonehenge isn't too far away, but that's probably a let-down for the money you'd pay to get in. I don''t know how easy it is to get to Avebury, but I'd say that's probably a bit better than Stonehenge (although it's many a long year since I was last there). It's a bit more like the Ring of Brodgar & a used to be (probably still is) a bit of a 'New Age' magnet.

Salisbury & Winchester are probably served by public transport. However, I was in Winchester a few weeks ago (stopped for food on the way back from Southampton) & I'd not bother again.

Wells - England's smallest city & quite a nice, twee sort of place. I used to share a flat in London with a Nigerian lad who, when I once mentioned Wells said, "oh, I've been there lots of times"...I was a bit surprised & asked him what took him there. "Aberystwyth" he said..."I love it".

I like Cheddar Gorge - it's a bit touristy, but if you're at all into cider, you'll find no shortage of options.

I'm assuming you haven't got a vehicle, which takes the joys of a day trying to navigate the Swindon Magic Roundabout out of the picture. It's right next to the Swindon Town ground & I swear I spent nearly as long trying to fathom my way around it without causing a major pile-up as I did driving from Huddersfield to Swindon.

Last time I was in Torquay was when I took the family there for my daughter's birthday many years back. She was chuffed to bits until she found out who Torquay United were at home to that day. Utter coincidence, of course, but a nice 1-0 win to celebrate the day.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/23/2019 at 11:05 AM, Huddersfield said:

I wouldn't claim to know that part of the world spectacularly well, but I've travelled to most of the football grounds around there in my time & have a vague sense of what it's like. My general take on it is that there's a lot of fairly quaint kind of places but not much that's an obvious 'to do'.

Stonehenge isn't too far away, but that's probably a let-down for the money you'd pay to get in. I don''t know how easy it is to get to Avebury, but I'd say that's probably a bit better than Stonehenge (although it's many a long year since I was last there). It's a bit more like the Ring of Brodgar & a used to be (probably still is) a bit of a 'New Age' magnet.

Salisbury & Winchester are probably served by public transport. However, I was in Winchester a few weeks ago (stopped for food on the way back from Southampton) & I'd not bother again.

Wells - England's smallest city & quite a nice, twee sort of place. I used to share a flat in London with a Nigerian lad who, when I once mentioned Wells said, "oh, I've been there lots of times"...I was a bit surprised & asked him what took him there. "Aberystwyth" he said..."I love it".

I like Cheddar Gorge - it's a bit touristy, but if you're at all into cider, you'll find no shortage of options.

I'm assuming you haven't got a vehicle, which takes the joys of a day trying to navigate the Swindon Magic Roundabout out of the picture. It's right next to the Swindon Town ground & I swear I spent nearly as long trying to fathom my way around it without causing a major pile-up as I did driving from Huddersfield to Swindon.

Last time I was in Torquay was when I took the family there for my daughter's birthday many years back. She was chuffed to bits until she found out who Torquay United were at home to that day. Utter coincidence, of course, but a nice 1-0 win to celebrate the day.

Thanks. I`ve been to Stonehenge and Avebuty and preferred the second.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How far are you willing to travel? I go to Stratford Upon Avon, a few times a year, my son stays there. Lovely place, very touristy, the Shakespeare effect. Plenty of nice bars and places to eat. Actually, going tomorrow for the weekend. To be honest i've limited knowledge of Shakespeare but like visiting the town. I think it's about an hour from the Cotswolds.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Back now. Thanks for all suggestions. Got day trip from Bath to Cotswolds with Mad Max Tours which was very good. 6 villages-can`t remember names but all very beautiful though a couple were swamped with tourists and a lot of the day was spent in traffic jams between villages. Devon good too though definitely better places to  stay in than Torquay.  10 days in a touristy part of England and apart from a Scottish woman working in a shop in Exeter no more Scottish accents and apart from one Polish waitress in hotel in Torquay almost no other non English except some Americans in Bath.  Being used to multinational hotels in Spain, Portugal etc it`s certainly strange to be almost only non English in a big hotel in a tourist resort in August. And that`s pre Brexit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, ironbrew said:

Back now. Thanks for all suggestions. Got day trip from Bath to Cotswolds with Mad Max Tours which was very good. 6 villages-can`t remember names but all very beautiful though a couple were swamped with tourists and a lot of the day was spent in traffic jams between villages. Devon good too though definitely better places to  stay in than Torquay.  10 days in a touristy part of England and apart from a Scottish woman working in a shop in Exeter no more Scottish accents and apart from one Polish waitress in hotel in Torquay almost no other non English except some Americans in Bath.  Being used to multinational hotels in Spain, Portugal etc it`s certainly strange to be almost only non English in a big hotel in a tourist resort in August. And that`s pre Brexit.

Just got back from Bath eh., setting up a new political party then Alex.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...


×
×
  • Create New...