@brainbomb: thanks for the tip, we are just now arranging hotels and such, I'll look that up. Any chance you remember the name?

http://www.ibis.com/gb/hotel-0921-ibis-london-euston-st-pancras/index.shtml

hotel Ibis

They had a great bar, and a cafeteria that served decent stuff. Buffet. the rooms were really nice lookin

Awesome, thanks brainbomb!

Its like 4 blocks from the London library, and the free City museum which had real mummies and stuff. very cool area

Anytime, have a blast!

London? Ugh!

Go West and see the great stone circles of Stonehenge and Avebury. See the burial mounds of the ancient kings. Visit Tintagel Castle, see the Great Dorset Steam Fair or the Bristol Balloon Fiesta. Find a cider festival, go to Glastonbury Tor, visit one of the great Welsh castles, visit Edinburgh, eat a haggis, and spend several hours squinting at something that's probably a log in Loch Ness.

Anything but bloody London!

I went to London and Bath. Bath was great for the day, but I don't know what you'd do at night, assuming you want more than a nice dinner or something.

Scotland is wonderful, if you want to head up there to visit.

Brainbomb - I'm living about two blocks from there, and I've really enjoyed Bloomsbury.

philcore - it'll be very pricy to stay in Central London. Since you'll be getting most places by tube anyways, it might not be too bad to stay a bit further away, but on a tube line. And stay off the buses in the morning. Damn traffic is so bad that if its within a 10-15 minute walk, you'll get there faster by walking.

But what I'll be doing when I'm done with term is taking a tour up through the Midlands all the way to the Lake District. Great for outdoors stuff.

@ Invictus

Bath has some pretty good nightlife. A lot of the pubs have late licences and transform into pretty good nightclubs when it gets late, but the best places are underground clubs created by combining the wine cellars of some of the posh houses. Great for music, nice and cool, and atmosphere 2nd to none. Very easy to walk past them without realising if you don't know they're there though.

I was there in high school, so it's not as if I was looking, but I did totally miss that. So there you go, Bath's good for more than the day.

Funnily enough I find Bath as boring as hell in the day. Aside from punting on the Avon up to that pub by the weir.

@oct, a trip to edi is definitely something id like to do. I've had fleets there so often, it'd be nice to actually see it in person. Also stonehenge is kind of a once in a lifetime sight for those of us far away.

@gf thanks for the advise. Is usually not be worried about morning travel, but with the 7 hour difference, I might be all fucked ip time wise.

Best way to do Stonehenge is at summer solstice when they open it up to celebrate the longest day. It's a crazy carnival type atmosphere, with druids all over the place and countless hippies and the like. Bit of a scrum at sunrise, but well worth it. Had some crazy dude jumping from stone to stone last time I was there.

Failing that contact the people who run it and say you want to study the stones, and for a small fee they'll let you get up close and touch them in a private viewing. Otherwise you'll just end up joining the rest of the plebs who visit, walk along the official footpath, and take a photo from a distance. It looks really crap from a distance.

I like the Cabinet War Rooms in London. I enjoy theater, so the West End and the National Theatre are must-stops for me.

I prefer Avebury to Stonehenge. You can take the train from London to Salisbury, then a bus that hits both Stonehenge and Avebury. Look at Stonehenge through the bus window, but get out and explore at Avebury. All together, it's an easy day trip from London.

Bath is also nice, but with only three days for the whole trip, I'd skip it.

Hey, the solstice at Stonehenge sounds like a good idea. I'll see if any of my friends would go. Thanks Octavious.

But it really depends what you want on your trip, philcore. Are you going to see as many places as you can, or are you big on theater or war or history? I mean, I can't even tour people around London in 3 days, so you really gotta ask yourself what ind of trip you want it to be.

I want the 3 day tour that I can say on my death bed many years from now (i hope) "i saw England" so things like stonehenge and avebury definitely fit that. And buying a round for any UK diplomats at a genuine English pub would fit that also. I hope its not my only trip there, but if it is, I want it to be as fulfilling as 3 days will allow.

do me a favour and eat a bramley seedling apple while in the U.K. one of my super distant now dead relatives planted the original tree but they dont have them here in florida so i cant eat one

If you want to see the "real" England, then you gotta get out of the cities, philcore. When you see sheep, you know you're in "real" England, lol. Sounds like stonehenge-Brighton-Stratford-upon-Avon are all the types of towns you'll want to hit.

@gf I think that's that's exactly the experience I'm looking for. I'll start there doing my research for specific plans. Thanks!

We may visit London in mid-July. I'm thinking Bluff King Hal, Good Queen Bess, Saucy Jack, and the Bard. Where should I stay?

British Museum, Tate Modern, Imperial War Museum, Hempstead Heath, catch a cheap football match (Fulham preferably but West Ham is terrible so it would probably be cheaper), Portrait Gallery, a play in the West End, a day trip to Brighton or the tank museum in Dorset, Greenwich, try out and start on the English national basketball team.

Cardiff!

2WL - I went to the Tate Modern last week, and aside from the Lichtenstein exhibit I hated it. Also, they're renovating the main gallery until november or so, so don't bother there philcore (although go to burrough market next door on a weekend). Imperial War Museum was also underwhelming. Churchill's War Rooms are much better, or the war museum at Dover Castle. Also, I found the Victoria and Albert Museum very enjoyable.

But he's right, West End plays are downright cheap compared to Broadway, and the same quality. Idk if football has started by August though.

The Tate Modern was by far my favorite part of my time in England, at least as far as touristy things go.

Devon and Cornwall well worth seeing but prob not on a 3 day trip. If you are keen to see a West End show I might be able to get you cheaper tickets depending on which one. I would definitely say Churchills war rooms are worth a look and do love borough market.

Looking at responses on here, enough interest to start a f2f in London some time?

Warwick Avenue Tube to Regents Canal (5 minute walk) then all the way around London to Limehouse Basin (8 or 9 mile walk) through the real ''authentic'' London. Regents Park, the zoo, Camden Lock, the new Kings Cross, the Old East End and the modern docklands. A fantistic walk, treat yourself to a curry and Kingfisher beer afterwards in Commercial Rd/Brick Lane.
One slight pause at Islington, where the canal goes into a tunnel, so take a good map as it is poorly signposted.

It's my birthday and I'll be in England so you should come give me a present. Seriously though I would say London is the best place in England. Culture, art, museums,history etc. If you go there there is more than enough to do for the length of your trip.

Classic English cities/towns that are nice would be Oxford, Salisbury, Wincheseter, Stratford upon Avon.

Edinburgh is great, and the Welsh countryside is great.

Fuck Stonehenge - boring as shit. Unless you're sure you would like it, there is no good reason to walk around a few stones for an hour after driving for so long.

66 Anchor Terrace.

That's my first stop if I ever get a chance to go there...

Original location of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

I'd probably visit the rebuilt one as well, but that seems very tourist-y...

Naw, it'd be far more fun to go to the original spot--even if it is just a modern car park or a set of modern buildings know--and know, 400+ years ago, someone stood there and know someone asked an entire shouting crowd,

"can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?"

And it's entirely possible that's where the world would have heard for the first time,

"To be or not to be, that is the question."

(Debatable, but still, a fun idea.)

Besides that...and the sites described in the works other authors describe...

I don't know. I really am not a tourist sort of person who wants to see every single last thing about the Royal Family and all that...frankly that seems like a waste of my precious time there...

Maybe just roam the countryside and see what so many great authors would have seen...if I made it over to Ireland I could hit up Shaw's theatre...

Faber and Faber, just because T.S. Eliot worked there, and then...I don't know, I don't want to spend my time seeing the same old sights everyone else picks out and then goes on about forever and ever--not only is that cliche, but it almost never lives up to your expectations...at least with Anchor Terrace I KNOW it's a modern cement-and-such sort of structure, but that's part of the fun, for me, anyway--

It's not going all that way to see some great structure and being disappointed at what it actually is, but going to the site where some of the greatest lines and works of all tine were first performed, and imagining and contemplating what WAS...the imagination of it all is a lot more worthwhile, I think, than just going and snapping some shots from my cellphone or getting a Big Ben T-shirt or whatever. :/

I'd probably go to a soccer pub just to say I went, even though I have no interest in the game except the World Cup...I'll just shout with whatever crowd is shouting, and hope that there aren't two factions in the pub and I have to choose sides...

So, basically, I'll get killed by soccer hooligans. Worse ways to go, though, I'm sure.

;)

You should visit Big Ben, its the big clock tower I don't know if you know what I'm talking about since only locals know.

@ SD: You walked around the footpaths with a bunch of tourists and looked at it from a distance like a numpty, didn't you :p? Yeah, I wouldn't advise going to the stones and doing that. You need to get up close and personal, see the sun rise, touch, taste and smell the place. Do it right and it's one hell of an experience.

The best way to see Shakespeare is an outdoor performance in the grounds of one of the great houses or castles. Saw A Midsummer Night's Dream in the gardens of Farleigh Castle last year on a midsummer's evening. Best bit of theatre I've seen in my life!

@ Octavious, been a few times but always as a family thing with foreign family friends, and yes that was exactly what we did, on cold british summer afternoons. May have to try it your way one day. Maybe a F2F game right in the middle too?

Follow the plan of Chris Stark, the BBC guy whose interview of Mila Kunis went viral. Go to Watford (outside of London), have lunch at Nando's chicken. Wear your bright yellow Watford FC jersey. Drink lad bombs with the locals and sing on the terraces. Go to the Watford championship league football game (kickoff at 3). Have a steak and ale pie at halftime. There's your authentic experience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4Ezruu1oeQ

@2WL: They jist renamed it 'Elizabeth Tower'. Noo naebody (e'en local loons) kens whaur it micht be.

@ 2WL

Timur speaks the truth, not that it has ever been called Big Ben. As everyone except Londoners know Big Ben is the name of the bell, not the tower. Very similar to the Liberty Bell in the states, except being better made it doesn't have a gert crack in it.