I’ll start a new thread for the 2 days in London (brief report).
Forgot to mention that we saw Simon Callow in De Profundis on our final day in Edinburgh. An amazing performance.
Travel tips (I’m not a very experienced traveler, so that the following w/ a grain of salt):
-
We stayed in Moss Cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon. It’s a 10-15 min walk from the city center, which was only annoying b/c we hit the tail end of one of the heat waves. During “normal” weather, it’s a nice walk and it’s actually relaxing to have a place away from the crowds. I didn’t particularly enjoy the Royal Shakespeare Company’s re-imagined version of The Merry Wives of Windsor (combining it w/ “The Only Way is Essex”), although I appreciated the attempt. I’m not familiar w/ the source material, but one of hour B&B hosts WAS familiar w/ the play, and he didn’t enjoy it, either. The breakfast at Moss Cottage was very good, and I’d happily stay there again.
-
We stayed on Lowerfield Farm for our Cotswolds stay. It was absolutely lovely, esp since we had one of the biggest rooms (heh). Breakfast was even better than Moss Cottage, although it’s an unfair comparison b/c much of what you’re eating comes from the farm itself. Very gracious hosts at both Moss and Lowerfield.
-
Renting a car is generally recommended for the Cotswolds. If that isn’t an option, I think I read on-line or in a guidebook that Circencester (located in the southern part of the Cotswolds) is a good choice b/c you can catch buses from there and b/c it’s a town (vs. a village). Not much (if any) of the famed honey-colored stone there, although I still found it fairly charming (certainly more so than Cheltenham).
-
Driving was a bit terrifying… Not just b/c we had to drive on the other side of the road, but also b/c the roads are very narrow (and even modern compact cars are fairly wide), the hedges can be quite tall (leading to blind curves), and b/c, if there’s no posted speed limit, apparently the speed limit defaults to the national speed limit, which is 60 MPH! Yikes.
-
Remember that everything in the countryside closes early.
-
We thought that flying from Birmingham to Edinburgh would save us time… Perhaps not so much, if your flights gets delayed 2-3 hours.
-
We stayed in Cityroomz in Edinburgh, which was conveniently located (near several bus stops) and had a decent continental breakfast. The rooms are pretty spacious (for Europe), but the feeling of the place is very much that of a college dorm. It’s relatively close to the city center, but still not close enough that you’d want to walk, IMO (vs. taking a bus). And, if you’re going to take the bus, you might as well see if one of the B&Bs recommended by Rick Steve (located further from the city center) might work better for you.
-
The M-ticket app and the Lothian Bus app (for Edinburgh) are a mess and difficult to use (esp since you have to purchase at least £10 to make a credit-card purchase. Bleh. Contactless payment is not yet standard on all buses. The single fare tickets have to be used w/i 5 mins (!!!) of activation (IIRC), and the single-day tickets are only good until the END of the day, not for a full 24-hr period.
-
The Edinburgh Bus Tour and CitySightseeing Bus Tours are both run by Lothian, and the 48-hour pass (which is actually good for a full 48 hours) is a good value if you can hit most of the big sites (e.g., the Castle, Holyrood Palace). It also allows you to bypass the ticket line at the Castle. We basically used the tour bus as a less crowded way to get around the city since it runs until a decently late time (5 or 7PM?).
-
We purchased Royal Oak membership (since it gives the same discount to UK attractions that members of the UK National Trust have). We didn’t realize, though, that the National Trust and English Heritage are 2 different sites and that sites are belong one to org or the other. And you don’t get a discount when you try to purchase tickets on-line.
-
If you want to leave your luggage at Waverley train station, MAKE A RESERVATION!!! The no-reservation line is huge. W/ a reservation, you can get to use a different (and exponentially shorter) line altogether.
-
The Caledonian sleeper train was miserable. I thought we were going to take the Orient Express; it was more like a bunk-bed coffin w/ decor from the 1980s. Tip: if you have any luggage (since very little of that will fit in the cabin should you also be in the cabin at the same time), you can ask to put your luggage in the storage train (where they also keep bikes). The best thing to do is to become unconscious as soon as possible upon boarding.
-
T-Mobile has a roaming agreement in the UK, and you can purchase a limited amount of high-speed data for a reasonable price. Good luck finding how to do that in the T-Mobile app, though.