Nottingham - Worth the Trip?

[AKULA]

so for Edinburgh/York/London...military museums will be _low_ on the list for the wife and kids. Scenic towns and natural beauty are a lot higher. Any suggestions on best places to take in the UK from those three locations?

The great thing is all 3 give you the opportunity to spend an hour in a military museum while your missus is enjoying herself a couple of hundred yards away...for example, the Jorvik Viking Centre in York gives you the sights (and smells) of a Viking settlement, but shops, restaurants (and the York Army museum are pretty much all next door to each other....same with Edinburgh etc..could easily park your kids in Jorvik, or York Dungeons for an hour while you got your Wargames fix 

York (and Edinburgh) offer some real views...surrounded by beautiful countryside...It’s a very compact city - pretty much everything is in walking distance, or at best a short cab ride. York Minster, the Shambles, Betty’s Tea Rooms... if you want more countryside, maybe pop over to Whitby from York, sleepy coastal town, harbour etc v.picturesque.

[Sir_Theo]

Also Whitby has that Dracula connection

[Hobgoblin]

Maybe a slightly off-the-wall suggestion, but some of the best castles in the UK are in Northumberland, just over the border from Edinburgh. For starters, you've got Bamburgh, Dunstanburgh, Warkworth, Norham and Alnwick (which your kids might well know from the Harry Potter films).

You could probably fit a couple of those in on a judiciously planned daytrip from Edinburgh - or to break up the journey south (though not by much, as Berwick-upon-Tweed is only about 40 minutes south of Edinburgh by train). Or you could spend a couple of days in Edinburgh, do some castles in Northumberland either side of a night there and then head south.

I'm deeply biased, but much as I love London, I'd leave it out if I wasn't going to spend the whole period there and instead use Edinburgh as a base to explore Northumberland and possibly the Highlands or islands (Arran, in particular - 'Scotland in miniature'). In normal times, the crowds and transit times in London can make everything a bit of a hassle - especially if you're in a rush.

[gamer Mac]

I don't think your 5 days is enough to see our wee island
You can easliy spend 5 days in any of the places mentioned so far and nobody has mentioned any of the battle sites yet
York is one of the best for things the whole family would be interested in vikings , harry potter and shops

[Mr. White]

Well, we obviously need to give this trip a second thought. An overhaul might be in order. I do really appreciate all the feedback though!

Oh, on the off chance I ever do find myself in Warhammer World, if I were to bring citadel models, but play like Dragon Rampant, would that fly? Or would we need to use citadel minis and GW rulesets only? i'm guessing the latter....

[Sir_Theo]

Yeah GW games only im afraid. I've seen people play old editions of Warhammer fantasy in there but mostly its in print games.

[jon_1066]

Don't even think about trying to do Edinburgh and London in 5 days.  You will be like Bilbo and the longevity from the ring - spread too thin. 

Pick one and go from there.  Don't underestimate how long places take to get to in the UK.  Just because distances are small compared to the US the traffic is usually bad.  Once you get rural public transport is usually non existent.  So for sure Berwick is 40 mins by train from Edinburgh but how do you get to those castles from there?  You don't want to spend the bulk of your five days sat in a traffic jam or waiting for a bus.

I would recommend the obvious M4/Thames corridor.  You can fly into Heathrow (on the west side of London), rent a car and explore the west.  There is Bath and its spa, Bristol (suspension bridge and SS Great Britain), Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, beautiful quintessential English countryside of rolling green hills and chocolate box cottages in the Cotswolds, Salisbury and it's spire, Avebury, Oxford, etc and you can finish up in London for a couple of nights or perhaps better yet take day trips into London from somewhere like Windsor (only 25 mins by train).  You could definitely plan a decent circuit without going more than 100 miles from Heathrow and pick the things of most interest to you.

[Wellington]

I spend a few Warhammer Historical Weekend in Nottingham.

No offence meant to the good people of Nottingham, but there are more interessting places in UK, especially with your family.

Edinburgh, York, Canterbury, Salisbury Plains, Iron Ring in North Wales etc.

[Hobgoblin]

Don't even think about trying to do Edinburgh and London in 5 days.  You will be like Bilbo and the longevity from the ring - spread too thin.

Yes, that's excellent advice. 

Don't underestimate how long places take to get to in the UK.  Just because distances are small compared to the US the traffic is usually bad.  Once you get rural public transport is usually non existent.  So for sure Berwick is 40 mins by train from Edinburgh but how do you get to those castles from there?  You don't want to spend the bulk of your five days sat in a traffic jam or waiting for a bus.

While this is generally sound advice, I'd disagree a bit here. For example, Norham Castle ("the most dangerous place in England", given its proximity to the border) is a 17-minute bus ride from Berwick, which is well worth seeing in its own right. And don't forget local taxis. When we went to Norham a few years back, we jumped on the bus from Berwick, went to the castle, had lunch in a pub in the village, then just called a cab to get back (which, for four people, wasn't that much more expensive than the bus, if I remember correctly). And with judicious use of the trains to Alnmouth and local buses, you could take in, say, Craster and Dunstanburgh and Alnwick or Warkworth - or do one castle and a long coastal walk.

You can also book excellent one-day minibus tours from Edinburgh. We've long experience of booking the in-laws onto them for trips to the Highlands (Glencoe, Culloden, etc.), the Borders and Northumberland, and they've been really good - relaxed and a bit of an adventure. You can get ones that go to Hadrian's Wall, or to Lindesfarne, Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle and Flodden, and they tend to have very well-informed guides. So you could cover the first-recorded Viking attack, the Border wars and reiving, Flodden and, on a cheesier note, both Harry Potter and Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves (though getting the white cliffs of Dover in on the same day like that film would be a bit of a stretch ...).

In fact, if you were based in Edinburgh for five days, a couple of those tours would be a pretty good way to take in a lot of the countryside both north and south of the border, and a lot of historical sites. If you're going to castles and battlefields, you're probably going to be in like-minded company, and the drivers/guides are very keen to get right into the history.

You can also sometimes book a minibus just to go to the sites you want - so if you wanted just to go to castles, for example, you could probably do that with a bit of forward-planning. I recall a very memorable stag weekend that began with a Highland trip with one of those companies ...

In general, Edinburgh's very easy to get in and out of, so you can fit much more into a daytrip than you might be able to elsewhere.

But that said, I entirely agree with jon_1066 that you'd want to base yourself in one main location and do things that are close to that hub.

[boneio]

No offence meant to the good people of Nottingham, but there are more interessting places in UK, especially with your family.

None taken, there's plenty to do here but there's plenty more and better elsewhere  One of those where if you plan lots of holidays to the UK, yes, come see Nottingham at some point! If you don't, we don't need to be high on the list 

[Wellington]

But nethertheless I had a good time there ... Rock City!

[2010sunburst]

I would say that during a trip of five days you will have time to relocate once.  Any more than that and you’ll be well acquainted with the UK road and rail network but not much else.  Remember it involves booking out of your accommodation, moving to a new location with all your luggage, then booking in again, before you can start looking at attractions.  Even for a comparatively short trip like York that will probably take from breakfast until mid afternoon.…..it’s not just the train times.  Travel to and from the stations needs to be factored in.  And while you’re at it, don’t forget to account for fatigue, because travelling continually can be tiring, especially for smaller children. 
I would seriously decide if you want a town or country experience, pick an area that you like, then have three good clear days to really get your teeth into it.  Trying to cover all bases in such a short time will ultimately leave you feeling exhausted and unfulfilled. 

[Hobgoblin]

Yeah, that's great advice from 2010sunburst. A base-and-day-trip plan is definitely the way to go. Even relocating once might feel rushed if you've only got five days. Our experience of family holidays has always been that any reasonable-sized European city has plenty to offer over a full week - and especially if you factor in a daytrip or two. So I'd suggest you'd have a more enjoyable time if you base yourself in one place and then venture out on one-day outings a couple of times.

One thing that you might consider, too, is how viable and easy daytrips are from whichever hub you choose. I don't mean to be down on London (I loved living there, and I love visiting it now), but getting across town to whichever train station a given trip starts from can be a bit of a slog in itself. Contrast with Edinburgh, where you'd be able to walk to the bus or train station in about 20 minutes if you were staying anywhere at all central.

I think the sheer scale of London means that you can do and see much less in a single day than you can in Edinburgh. Spending a lot of time on the Tube can be unpleasant, and then there are the crowds to consider. In normal times, you can have large queues outside of the main sights, which just doesn't arise in other cities. As an example, the Natural History Museum often has queues to get in; they may just take 20 minutes or so of your time, but it all adds up. Our experience on family trips to London (staying with friends) is that we tend to do just one 'thing' a day (the zoo, the British Museum, the Natural History Museum, the V&A, the Tate, etc.), and then usually just once over a long weekend. If I'm down in London on my own for work, it's a bit easier to take in some more stuff opportunistically - e.g. going to the British Museum and then taking the long Tube ride south to the Imperial War Museum - but it's still quite draining.

By contrast, Edinburgh and York are places where you can fit lots into a single day, and it's much less draining because you can walk everywhere (walking around London is infinitely preferable to the Tube, but it takes plenty of time, and isn't practical in some cases). You can very easily fit five or six sights in Edinburgh into a single day (e.g. up Arthur's Seat, the palace, various small museums on the Royal Mile, the National Museum on Chamber Street and the walk up to the castle - perhaps going inside on the next day). There are ghost tours in the evening/at night, which can be quite good and atmospheric, too.

And the day-trip aspect is so much easier. From Edinburgh, you can get to Glasgow in 52 minutes on the train, centre to centre. You can get to Stirling, with its huge medieval castle, in even less time. You could perfectly well go to Stirling, see the castle, and be back after lunch in time to do a few other things. The minibus daytrips can get you to Northumberland and back for Hadrian's Wall or medieval castles (or both, in some cases), and they can also get you up to the Highlands and back in a day - and the likes of Glencoe are well worth seeing.

One more thing: if your kids are energetic, the hills inside Edinburgh add a lot of fun. You can have a great scramble up the rockier bits of Arthur's Seat, and even going up Calton Hill gives you great views and breaks up the urban experience considerably.

Right, that's my broadcast for the Scottish Tourist Board! But I do think that Edinburgh's the best place in the UK to base yourself if you only have five days - and especially if you have historical interests.

[Belligerentparrot]

I don't mean to be down on London (I loved living there, and I love visiting it now), but getting across town to whichever train station a given trip starts from can be a bit of a slog in itself. Contrast with Edinburgh, where you'd be able to walk to the bus or train station in about 20 minutes if you were staying anywhere at all central.

This made me smile. When I first moved to Edinburgh from London I didn't go to gigs in Glasgow - I figured it was too away. Then I realised spending an hour travelling to the gig was basically going to a gig in London when living in London

[Hobgoblin]

This made me smile. When I first moved to Edinburgh from London I didn't go to gigs in Glasgow - I figured it was too away. Then I realised spending an hour travelling to the gig was basically going to a gig in London when living in London

Ha! Yes - exactly!

I've lived in both Beijing and Shanghai, and they're the obvious comparators to London for me: genuine megacities that are on a completely different scale from normal cities.

I really started to notice it when I came down to visit friends living in different parts of London - and would often find that they hadn't seen each other since I'd last been down, simply because of the hassle of meeting up.