<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I’m tying to find a tour company to travel with from London to Stonehenge with stops along the way - Bath, etc. Ideally it would be great to get inside the inner circle but I’m not sure that’s possible this time of year. Has anyone used a tour company for this trip - would you recommend them?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>You don’t need a tour from London, unless you’re very pressed for time. Just take the train or bus to Salisbury (a gorgeous cathedral town in its own right, with plenty to see, good shopping, nice restaurants) and then grab a local bus out to Stonehenge. The entry ticket to Stonehenge includes the tour.</p>
<p>Avebury is quite close by–doable in the same day. It isn’t as photogenic as Stonehenge but it’s very interesting and less infested with tourists.</p>
<p>Wilton House, just outside Salisbury, is also well worth seeing.</p>
<p>Bath is easily accessible by bus or train from Salisbury. Each town has at least a day’s worth of things to see, so consider staying overnight in one town or the other before heading back to London.</p>
<p>I agree that it makes sense to spend at least one or more nights in Bath or nearby rather than rush to Bath & back to London in the same day. We followed suggestions in Europe through the Back Door by Rick Steves and were very pleased with the tour of the Cottswolds that was recommended & that we took. We also followed the recommendation on the B&B we stayed at in Bath. We found Stonehenge not as interesting as the similar configuration we got to see in another village where you see the sheep rambling among the stones and you can go up, touch & photograph yourselves among the stones.</p>
<p>Enjoy your trip! We even saw a play in the evening while in Bath, starring Raquel Welch (plot was awful but cool to see her).</p>
<p>Okay - this is good information. I thought a tour was the only reasonable way to do it but traveling by train is better. </p>
<p>HImom - would you recommend the B&B you stayed in?</p>
<p>Starting point is actually Stratford-upon-Avon - I’ll see if there are trains from there to Salisbury. Would you stay in Salisbury or Bath? I expect there will be about half the day on Saturday and all day Sunday to travel and visit.</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>I can’t remember the name of the company but we did a tour from London. Some tour companies have special permits that allow you to do a private tour of Stonehenge (after hours) and you can touch the stones and have your photo taken leaning against them, etc. Normally, you have to stay behind the rope. The ropes keep you a considerable distance from the stones. Just google ‘Stonehenge private access tours’. We felt it was well worth the money. The tour also took you through Bath and a couple of other small towns.</p>
<p>I stayed at a Holiday Inn in Bath. The hotel was fine but I was disappointed in Bath as a town (too many panhandlers) - but I liked seeing the actual baths.</p>
<p>I’ve stayed at a number of B&Bs in the UK and almost all of them were good. At the time I was driving and would just stop at the ones I happened to see and see if they had a room, check it out, find out the price, and decide whether to stay or not.</p>
<p>We took a tour from London as a long day trip. Visited Stonehenge, Bath and Salisbury.
It was FANTASTIC. But what was interesting to us and made this tour so incredible was that at least back then (several years ago), we learned that British tour guides are an exceptional lot. They are required to pass an exam and be “certified” or something like that. The gentleman we had was a older gentleman, an actor, who was a goldmine of information. He entertained us the entire trip with history & stories, and frankly was one of the highlights of our trip. We learned SO much from him about royal history and british history in general. He brought Stonehenge alive for us, if that’s possible :)</p>
<p>Simply magnificent. If this is still true (re the quality of British tour guides), I highly recommend doing this. It was a remarkable day and we felt it was underpriced for the education and travel which was provided that day.</p>
<p>I’m sorry I cannot recall the name of the company. However, it was my understanding that any top quality London tour company would have this caliber of guides. Seriously, we tend to be independent travelers and weren’t sure how we felt about doing this guided “tour”. Boy, are we glad we did it.</p>
<p>I am not generally a tour person but would absolutely recommend doing Stonehenge as a tour for the sole purpose of being able to stay after everyone else has left and go within the ropes. I had gone to Stonehenge many years ago and thought it was just ok when surrounded by a gazillion tourists. Went on a tour a few years ago when we took some girl scouts to Europe. Chose a tour that included being allowed to stay after everyone had left and being there at sunset. Absolutely magical. It was a major highlight of the trip.</p>
<p>I think I booked it through Expedia. You might check and see if they have a link to a tour operator that offers the dawn or dusk tours (it was about 5 years ago we did it).</p>
<p>I have never been on a tour to Stonehenge but I have been there in my own car. There is an audio guide that you listen to as you walk round the stones, but as noted above unless you are on a special access tour you cannot touch the stones and have to keep behind a small fence.</p>
<p>To go there by public transport from Stratford Upon Avon, you need to change train two or three times. </p>
<p>StratfordUA -> Leamington Spa -> Basingstoke -> Salisbury
or
StratfordUA ->Banbury -> Basingstoke -> Salisbury</p>
<p>This will take about 3.5 hours and walk-up tickets will cost more than £100 (bought 12 weeks in advance the cost might be as low as £20. Have not checked if there are any deals. Online it is clear there are multiple stations in the UK called Stratford. Be care to select Stratford-Upon-Avon). </p>
<p>A huge red double decker bus stops outside of Salisbury station. It has a picture of stonehenge on the side of it. This is the tour bus with commentary. I have never been on it. </p>
<p>There is a copy of the Magna Carta in Salisbury cathedral (beautiful in itself) which you may find interesting. Surprisingly it is as clean and clear as if it were written yesterday.</p>
<p>After Salisbury you could get on the train to Bath, stay over night there and see Bath the next day. Without a tour or your own car it would be extremely difficult to see Bath and Stonehenge on the same day. There are bus tours which visit both on the same day but they originate in London early morning. So to get on one of these from Stratford UA, you would need to stay in London the night before. I see an Evan Evans bus tour quite often go past, and I think that’s going to Bath, but I’ve never been on it.</p>
<p>Bath is crazily touristy and crowded, but 99.9% of visitors only visit for the day. By 6pm it’s just locals and students. I highly recommend sitting in the roof top pool and looking down on the city at night. I enjoyed experiencing the baths much more than wandering round the Roman baths with the screaming hordes (actually I’ve been to the Roman Baths once but the Thermae spa about 10 times!).</p>
<p>[Thermae</a> Bath Spa, Britain’s only natural thermal spa](<a href=“http://www.thermaebathspa.com%5DThermae”>http://www.thermaebathspa.com)</p>
<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I’ve been trying to figure out trains from Stratford upon Avon to Salisbury and I tried cupcakes suggestions. Both involve taking a bus for part of the trip. Would it be easier to travel from SUA to London and then from London to Salisbury? It may cost a little more but there are less trains involved so hopefully less to go wrong. If any of the trains are late it could create a logistical nightmare. </p>
<p>Is the Waterloo station the best one to travel to Salisbury?
Thanks for helping</p>
<p>We took a wonderful daylong tour of Stonehenge, Avebury, and some other places in that area. It started from Bath, which was our base at the time. I usually save details about our vacations, but unfortunately I didn’t in this case. Maybe you could spend the night in Bath, see the city, and take one of the small tours that leaves from there.</p>
<p>Look for a company with small buses and small groups. Check Trip Advisor–which may be where I found the company we used. The advantage, as someone else mentioned, was that we got into Stonehenge ahead of the crowds without having to wait in line. It was fantastic. I am not a fan of guided tours, but this one was great, with an extremely knowledgeable guide. Avebury was a lovely village with a very impressive stone circle. I learned so much that day. I’m looking at the photo on my desk of our family with Stonehenge in the background. Do we look like American tourists? Yes. Were we having a wonderful time? Yes again.</p>
<p>we did it this fall with one of the big companies. It was fine and the guide was extremely knowledgeable. We are going next week with kids (first was taking daughter over for a year, now everyone is visiting) We are using a group called “tours by locals” who do small private groups. I wanted small where my kids can ask questions and not be on a bus with 50 other people.</p>
<p>^^ This sounds like the company we used. I’m saving the name for next time.</p>
<p>I was able to book the private access tour for sunset on Saturday or sunrise on Sunday - still deciding. So it looks like it will be trains to Salisbury.</p>
<p>So - would it be best to spend Sat night in Salisbury and then Sunday morning take a train to Bath and then later in the day head back to Stratford upon Avon. There is limited time so what are the things not to be missed?</p>
<p>Other than the cost of the trains I think the weekend is going to work out well. </p>
<p>Any suggestions on how to make the trip work are appreciated. I’m going to look into things to do in Salisbury and Bath. </p>
<p>The plan is to confirm the sunset access visit today - as of yesterday they had 11 spots left so we should be good.</p>
<p>Those are the correct train connections which i posted. If for the dates you are looking at the train website is showing buses, they are the dreaded bus replacement services. At weekends, there are engineering works on the train lines. So the train is replaced by a bus which takes twice as long, but there is no price reduction. </p>
<p>The via London train route would be Stratford UA to Marylebone, cross London on the tube and then Waterloo to Salisbury.</p>
<p>If this sunset tour is in March, sunset is about 6pm. So if you want to travel on to Bath on the Saturday evening, there would still be time (if this tour is in June sunset is about 9pm so that’s different).</p>
<p>The trip is this Saturday March 5th. I don’t think the bus/train situation can be avoided.
Do you happen to know anything about the Half Marathon scheduled for Bath this Sunday? Would it be crazy to try and visit while its going on or no big deal? I read the hop on hop off tours won’t be working until after 2 pm when the race is over.</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>This is probably too late but I just googled Bath half marathon. The route doesn’t go right past the Roman baths but it does appear to cut off access to Royal crescent. It sounds like the city centre will be crazily crowded (but in August it’s like that every day) so if I were you I’d visit Salisbury first, Bath second this weekend.</p>
<p>How did the trip go?</p>
<p>Great - this was one of our son’s last trips before the end of his internship. The trains looked like they were going to be a mess on Sat morning. He was able to get to London on Friday night instead. Took the train to Salisbury Sat morning, spent some time in Salisbury and took a taxi to Stonehenge. Did the stone access tour at 4:30 pm with about a dozen other people. Took some great photos and loved being so close to the stones. Being inside the circle made all the difference in the world. Taxi’s were expensive since its winter season and things aren’t running at a full schedule. He skipped Bath partly because of the marathon and partly because he’s done a lot of traveling. </p>
<p>The Friday night before Stonehenge he saw the Queen of England - she came to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre to officially reopen it.</p>
<p>All in all he had an incredible time - he came home last night.</p>
<p>These boards have been an amazing help and I’m grateful for all the suggestions.</p>