South of England

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phoenix

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Hi

I would love to see some of the South of England and think I will visit this August. I have two children 4 & 11 and would like to fly from Dublin to Bristol, hire a car in Bristol and take it from there. We would be there for approximately six days.

Has anyone any suggestions where to go, stay, sightseeing, and how far south we could realistically go in six days.


Many thanks
 
I married a man from Devon and go over every year for hols. Very family friendly gorgeous sea side towns etc. Drive direct from Bristol to south coast, chose a resort that has a festival on the week you are going, check on web. These annual fair weeks are all about familys and children. I recommend Torquay, Dartmouth, Salcombe, all those towns. Accommodation is everywhere B and B's holiday villages etc. All on the Web. Only about two hours drive from Bristol to South Coast, well worth the trip. Go you will love it.
 
meant to add use M5 motorway and onto the A38 best route to the best towns!
 
I did just that in June and had a lovely time.
I would suggest setting a rough itenerary before you go.
There are a lot of tourist wesb sites for the region, log on and request brouchures to be sent to you.
Google Devon and Cornwall.

We found that a lot of places were child friendly, seemed to be lots of parks even small villages had them.
We thought Somerset was lovely too.

Dartmoor is definately worth driving over. A particularly nice village we liked was Widdicome on the moor, picture postcard lovely.

I would actually not try to see too much on your journey as you can end up spending a lot of time in the car driving to places rather than enjoying them.

I second Dartmouth is is a very pretty and lively place.

We found accomodation very expensive there. We had not booked ahead so did not avail of any special offers as we wanted to be free to stop where we chose.
I would not reccomend this as we did waste a lot of time trying to find accomodation, I would plan a rough route and book accomoation ahead if possible.

Enjoy I know we did and will go back.
 
I lived in Devon for 3 yrs.Fantastic part of the world.
I'd recommend any of the towns on dartmoor,but in particular Widdecombe & tavistock(bigger but lovely town),on the south coast,Plymouth isn't all that appealing,but has a fantastic restaurant called Tanners.You could also got to Exmoor on the north coast & see a place called Lynton/Lynmouth,as for Cornwall,Padstow St Ives on the north coast,while falmouth /Fowey on the south coast are beautiful as well
 
On your way south you could take a longer route (but not too long!) through Bath and then onto the Salisbury Plain. I was only about 10 when I was in Bath but I remember it clearly as a beautiful place. In the area of Salisbury you can see the White Horse and Stonehenge.
 
I ws in Bath recently and TBh was not that impressed. It was just another city I felt, mind you we did it at the end of our trip so we were spoilt from all the wonderful countryside by then.
 
This all sounds great. Thanks for the tips. Is it best to fly to Bristol and hire a car from there or do the Dublin to Holyhead trip?

If we decided to book accommodation in advance we would probably pick 3 places and stay 2 nights in each, where would you all recommend? Or would we be better with 2 places and 3 nights in each?

Looking forward to it already!

BTW has anyone been to the Eden project? What did you think? Worth a visit?
 
Sorry, following on from mail above, I knew I meant to ask another question? has anyone done this trip in a campervan? How would you go about hiring one. Husband is dead against, but I would love to do it for the laugh!
 
phoenix said:
BTW has anyone been to the Eden project? What did you think? Worth a visit?
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Wellworth a visit but it gets very busy in high tourist season so book ahead via their website!
 
Personally I hate the ferry but I suppose if you have a lot of luggage it would make sense.
It was very easy to fly to Bristol and hire a car.
But I see you will be bringing kids so will need car seats so maybe the ferry is your best option.
 
Just back from a long weekend in Ashburton in South Devon, just off the A38. Lovely little town, GREAT secondhand bookshop by the carpark. Convenient for Dartmoor and Lydford Gorge.

We stayed at "The Hive" 50 North St. Tel. ++ 1364 653164. email =
thehive @onetel.com or www.bedandbreakfastdevon.co.uk

No ensuite rooms, but only 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. My nomination for great breakfasts of the world award; everything locally sourced and the cook goes to different butchers for bacon and white pudding as " That one is better for bacon and that one is better for white pudding."

The other thing about Ashburton is that until recently the Mayor belonged to the Monster Raving Loony Party, which gives a flavour of the town.
 
I'd recommend 3 different spot,but make sure you get down to C'wall,a bit like Ireland 20years ago-a bit of a cliche,but true.
I'd suggest;
Exmoor or dartmoor(Lynton or Tavistock respectively,Lynton very small ,but stunning,while Tavistock is a bigger town on the western edge of D'moor,but beautiful,mentioned a lot,apparently,in Jane Austen novels.
Padstow/Rock/Polzeath-nicest area on north coast & alot to do,avoid Newquay.
Forgot about Lydford-great restaurant there as well called Arundel Arms
 
Another great bed and breakfast in Devon is Hill Farm, we stayed there - they are really friendly and the rooms are superb. Their website is at <a href="http://www.bedandbreakfastdevon.org">http://www.bedandbreakfastdevon.org</a>
 
I love St Ives and Padstow in Cornwall. Stay away from Newquay in summer season :)
 
Even closer to Bristol is the Cotswolds with all their charming old villages.
I did Devon many years ago in a camper van. There is a downside to this. The one that I hired was noisy when travelling, they are too large to use the regular car parks, we had to park away from the town centre and walk in, Before you move off on a morning all dishes etc had to washed and and everything put away before you could move off, when you came back to your camp site on an evening it was taken by someone else unless you staked it out. Better to hire a caravan and just leave in a camping site.
 
offshore said:
I love St Ives and Padstow in Cornwall. Stay away from Newquay in summer season :)
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Why not Newquay in Summer?, it is a bit invaded by London surfers & cool kids?? Seems to be a great caravan park/entertainment park there, Hedra (along the lines of Trabolgan). We're seriously considering caravanning there next July, ferry from Rosslare to Fishguard. 2 young kids in tow.... plus a caravan in tow.
 
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