London Diaries - The Plan
When we planned our vacation, we were in 2 minds on whether to get a Schengen visa and do another European country or to spend the entire 15 days in UK and Ireland. Finally, we decided on the latter as we knew that travelling with 2 kids is gonna considerably slow us down. Then came the question of tickets - we chose Srilankan Airlines despite the longer flight duration as we had an overnite stop over on our way back and we love Columbo as a shopping destination.
As usual when we travel, we relied on a travel agency for our visas and tickets and did the rest of the planning by ourselves. We decided to split the trip roughly equally between London, Scotland and Western Ireland - 5 days each. Hubby and self had explored Scotland up to Inverness, so we decided to go higher up the Highlands this time. Western Ireland was chosen as there were many picturesque spots we wanted to see there - at least the pics from other travel bloggers and websites looked inviting ! We wanted to do a self-drive (where hubby drives and I sit back and relax:)) itinerary for the Scotland and Ireland legs and we used the itinerary here as a base for our Ireland leg and the one here for the Scottish leg. We did modify the plan quite a bit - but these are good starting points if you are planning a trip yourselves.
For the London leg, we definitely wanted to do Oxford and Cambridge and that took away 2 full days. We planned our stay in Apartment hotels (also known as self catering units). These not only worked out cheaper, but also supremely convenient. We did pepper it with occasional hotel stays, as kids wanted access to the pool and hubby wanted access to a sumptuous breakfast.
Detailed descriptions of each leg of our journey shall follow. Meanwhile, here is a sneak peek ...
As usual when we travel, we relied on a travel agency for our visas and tickets and did the rest of the planning by ourselves. We decided to split the trip roughly equally between London, Scotland and Western Ireland - 5 days each. Hubby and self had explored Scotland up to Inverness, so we decided to go higher up the Highlands this time. Western Ireland was chosen as there were many picturesque spots we wanted to see there - at least the pics from other travel bloggers and websites looked inviting ! We wanted to do a self-drive (where hubby drives and I sit back and relax:)) itinerary for the Scotland and Ireland legs and we used the itinerary here as a base for our Ireland leg and the one here for the Scottish leg. We did modify the plan quite a bit - but these are good starting points if you are planning a trip yourselves.
For the London leg, we definitely wanted to do Oxford and Cambridge and that took away 2 full days. We planned our stay in Apartment hotels (also known as self catering units). These not only worked out cheaper, but also supremely convenient. We did pepper it with occasional hotel stays, as kids wanted access to the pool and hubby wanted access to a sumptuous breakfast.
Detailed descriptions of each leg of our journey shall follow. Meanwhile, here is a sneak peek ...
Comments
better! Reading through this post reminds me of my previous roommate!
He always kept talking about this. I most ertainly will send this article to him.
Fairly ceftain he will have a good read.
Many thanks for sharing!
Welcome to my blog ! and thanks for the kind words. Do we know each other?