I’m going to travel to the UK for 8 days in February for business.  I will have a small window for sightseeing and I’m trying to prioritize.  I’d love to see a castle.  Dover castle, Tower of London or Windsor would work.  

 

Im set to arrive early Saturday st Heathrow.  Heathrow is about a 17 min drive to Windsor.  It seems natural to go there first thing after arrival.  If I take cab, it’s only about 17 minutes.... but what to do with the luggage??  I can’t find a train station with luggage storage, because I considered leaving luggage in the train station and picking it up on my way into London.

 

This is tough!  Anyone have a tip they would like to share?  I also cannot find rental cars with automatic transmission... is that right??

I’m originally from England and go back frequently. I was actually in London just the other week. 

I can’t speak with authority about Windsor castle as I’ve been to the town, but not the castle itself. 

Just be prepared that it might look 17 mins from LHR but traffic can be a nightmare. Also you can easily add an hour on to your actual landing time at LHR before you’ll actually be landslide and ready to roll. It’s a huge airport and you will walk for what seems like forever just to get to immigration.

You can thank the IRA for the lack of left luggage facilities nowadays in train stations. 

As long as you specify (and pay a premium) you can get an auto trans from any of the major rental companies. You may need to call though rather than do it online. When I go there they assume I’m American and can’t drive a stick so I’ve often been given an auto. 

I know I’ve not been much help (!) but wanted to give you a reality check on how easy it is to get around in what is a fabulous, but big and busy major city. 

Edited December 6, 20186 yr by roman totale XVII

59 minutes ago, roman totale XVII said:

I’m originally from England and go back frequently. I was actually in London just the other week. 

I can’t speak with authority about Windsor castle as I’ve been to the town, but not the castle itself. 

Just be prepared that it might look 17 mins from LHR but traffic can be a nightmare. Also you can easily add an hour on to your actual landing time at LHR before you’ll actually be landslide and ready to roll. It’s a huge airport and you will walk for what seems like forever just to get to immigration.

You can thank the IRA for the lack of left luggage facilities nowadays in train stations. 

As long as you specify (and pay a premium) you can get an auto trans from any of the major rental companies. You may need to call though rather than do it online. When I go there they assume I’m American and can’t drive a stick so I’ve often been given an auto. 

I know I’ve not been much help (!) but wanted to give you a reality check on how easy it is to get around in what is a fabulous, but big and busy major city. 

That actually is a big help.  I have no idea what to expect, so it’s difficult.  I might have to approach this more casually than I want to maintain my sanity.  Thanks for the tip on the car rentals.  I was going to wait until I arrive in Cambridge to look for a car... if I even need one.  I may try to rent a bicycle instead.

 

is there something that you would highly recommend doing?  I will have about a day and a half in London and the remainder in Cambridge.

Edited December 6, 20186 yr by mkeller234

What a coincidence, I will also be in London that month. Any tips for a first time visitor would be great!  

My suggestion is to stay in town. If you have so little time to see London, then stay close to the center. There's plenty to see. The Tower of London can take a full day to see, but you can shrink it by not taking a guided tour (but then you miss the great stories). You can always leave the tour at any time. Fortunately, you'll be seeing it at a time of the year when there will be far fewer foreign tourists so the lines should be shorter.

 

Suggestion: ride one of those hop-on, hop-off tour buses. If it's not raining, ride up top even if it's cold outside. You can get lots of great photos from up there. And if you see something you want to spend more time at, get off at the next stop. It's a good way to get oriented to where things are in the center of the city.

 

You might also consider getting a visitor Oyster Card instead of a rental car. We Americans think of the different transit systems as being in silos and having to pay different fares and use different fare media to get around. But in London, you can use the Oyster Card for all of the buses, subways (underground), regional rail network (overground), TFL Rail, Docklands Light Rail (DLR), trams, and River Bus (yes, a floating bus, worth taking for unique river views). You can add value to the Oyster Card as you go at fare machines in all public transport stations and at many stores.

Edited December 6, 20186 yr by KJP

I was in England in October for business for about 10 days and did a bit of sightseeing so let's see if my experience is of any help to you.  There are left luggage facilities at the major train stations around London.  This may not be ideal for you and it will cost you a bit extra, but you could take the Paddington express train from Heathrow to Paddington station (about a 20 minute ride), store your luggage, then hop back on a GWR train out to Windsor (if that's really where you want to go).  It all depends on the rest of your itinerary though.  

 

If you only have 1.5 days in London I would recommend you spend it in London instead of Windsor.  I spent a couple weekends in London and went to the British Museum and Imperial War Museum (save plenty of time for the Holocaust section) and I would highly recommend both.  Also, spend a day riding the buses and tube to see the sites.  These are the ones that I wouldn't miss; Buckingham Palace and St. James Park, Big Ben (undergoing maintenance, but still a thing to see) and Westminster Abbey / Palace of, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus / Regent Street for shopping, Tower Bridge, and the Tower of London.

 

If you must rent a car, do it in Cambridge.  You don't want to deal with the London traffic. 

I also recommend Westminister Abbey and the British Museum. The latter is free and you won't be able to see all of it in one day, so pick a section that is of most interest to you and focus on that. I did the Roman history section, which is fascinating to see the amazing Roman relics discovered under buildings or within strange bumps in farmers' fields.

 

BTW, the train from Heathrow to Paddington is called the Heathrow Express. It's a lot more expensive than the Tube but a lot faster too (runs nonstop at 90 mph). You can buy a seat ahead of time at: https://www.heathrowexpress.com/

Just a quick one that comes to mind. There's a huge urban redevelopment with a bunch of historic buildings called Kings Cross. It's behind the Kings Cross and St. Pancras railroad stations. In that development there's an Indian restaurant called Dishoom... Check that out.

 

http://www.kingscross.co.uk/dishoom