London sidetrips

Day trips and sidetrips to the best of England outside of London

For most of these, you could easily spend a full day and stay the night. You can, however, convceivably do any one of them in a single day out from London (easiest, perhaps, by going with a guided tour rather that trying to work out all the public transportation schedules).

Stonehenge - Although Stonehenge is associated in many people's minds with Druids, that Celtic religious sect was merely using an existing site. Stonehenge was a ancient mystery even to the 1st century BC Druids. It was begun by an unknown people before 3,000 BC and added to up until 1,500 BC. All we really know about Stonehenge is that it is a remarkable feat of engineering—some of the stones came from dozens of miles away—and acts like a huge astronomical calendar, aligned with the summer equinox and still keeping track of the seasons after more than 5,000 years...

Salisbury - Many visitors hurrying out to see the famous Stonehenge are surprised to find that they stumble across one of Europe's greatest Gothic cathedrals along the way. Salisbury, gateway to South Wiltshire and its prehistoric remains, is a medieval market town that's a deserved attraction in its own right. ...

Oxford - The City of Dreaming Spires, robed dons, budding intellectuals, and punting on the Cherwell is today surrounded by sprawling suburbs and clogged with the bustle of both a university town and a small industrial city. But don’t let that keep you from making a pilgrimage to the collection of gloriously medieval colleges that matriculated the likes of John Donne, Samuel Johnson, Christopher Wren, William Penn, Charles Dodgson (otherwise known as Lewis Carroll), Graham Greene, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. ...

Bath - Founded by the Romans, Bath today is a genteel foray into the Georgian world. The highlights include having high tea in the 18th-century Pump Room, perusing the extensive Roman remains, and admiring the honey-colored stone architecture that drew in its heyday the likes of Dickens, Thackery, Nelson, Pitt, and Jane Austen...

Stratford-upon-Avon - Shakespeare's birth house, Shakespeare's tomb, the Royal Shakespeare Company theater, Shakespeare's son-in-law's house... some nice pubs, too (where, one imagines, Shakespeare must have once enjoyed a tipple). Did I mention Shakespeare from from Stratford?...