England for Three Generations: Oxford, the Cotswolds, Bath, the Lakes and York

1. Day 1: London to Oxford

   London Paddington by train to Oxford

   • By train
   • Welcome dinner in Oxford at about 6 pm
   • Stay in Oxford
   Day 1 details

   We meet your See Sight Tours guide at London Paddington between about 10 and 11 am (the exact time and meeting point come with your final itinerary), late enough for families who arrived the day before to have a slow breakfast. A direct train takes about an hour to Oxford, where our minibus meets us and carries the bags to the hotel. After lunch on your own, the guide leads a short walk to Christ Church, where children recognise the staircase and the Great Hall that inspired the dining hall in the Harry Potter films. Then the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, free to enter, with dinosaur skeletons and the dodo that Lewis Carroll put into Alice in Wonderland. From April to September we end the afternoon in chauffeured punts on the Cherwell, so nobody has to steer; in other months we walk Christ Church Meadow. The welcome dinner is at about 6 pm, so the youngest are in bed on time.

   Included

   • Standard-class train from London Paddington to Oxford with your guide
   • Bags taken from Oxford station to the hotel by minibus
   • Christ Church: Tom Quad, the cathedral and the Great Hall
   • Oxford University Museum of Natural History with your guide
   • Chauffeured punt on the Cherwell, with a punter at the pole (April to September)
   • Early welcome dinner in Oxford

   Optional experiences

   • The Pitt Rivers Museum, through the back of the Natural History Museum (free entry)

   Easier option: Take a taxi with your guide between the station, Christ Church and the museum.

   More active option: Climb the tower of the University Church of St Mary for the view over Radcliffe Square (small fee, many steps).

   Free time: Lunch on your own in central Oxford

   Activity: About 2 hours on foot on level pavements and college flagstones, with stairs at Christ Church. Christ Church closes parts of the college for university events; we confirm the visit with your final itinerary.

2. Day 2: Cotswold villages and a farm

   Oxford to Bourton-on-the-Water, Stow-on-the-Wold, the Cotswold Farm Park and the Rollright Stones, then back to Oxford

   • Drive about 2.5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Oxford
   Day 2 details

   We leave Oxford at 8:45 and reach Bourton-on-the-Water before most of the day coaches, while the River Windrush is still quiet under its low stone bridges. The Model Village behind the Old New Inn is Bourton itself at one-ninth size, built in the 1930s, and children can look down on every roof and the tiny model of the model village. Walkers take the field path of about 2 km to Lower Slaughter and its watermill; everyone else rides the minibus and meets them there. Lunch is a sit-down meal at a pub in Stow-on-the-Wold, the market town on its hill. In the afternoon we drive a few minutes west to the Cotswold Farm Park, where rare breeds of sheep, cattle and pigs live, and children can bottle-feed lambs or hold small animals in season. On the way back we stop at the Rollright Stones, a Bronze Age circle with a story: try counting them, because the legend says no one gets the same number twice. Back in Oxford by about 5 pm.

   Included

   • Bourton-on-the-Water early, before most day coaches
   • The Model Village, Bourton-on-the-Water
   • Sit-down pub lunch in Stow-on-the-Wold
   • The Cotswold Farm Park
   • The Rollright Stones

   Optional experiences

   • Birdland Park in Bourton-on-the-Water, with penguins and flamingos (extra, price shown at booking)

   Easier option: Ride the minibus from Bourton-on-the-Water to Lower Slaughter and sit by the mill stream.

   More active option: Walk the field path from Bourton-on-the-Water to Lower Slaughter and on to Upper Slaughter, about 4 km, and meet the minibus there.

   Free time: Evening free in Oxford

   Activity: About 2 hours on foot in all, on village streets, farm paths and grass; the optional field path has gates and can be muddy after rain.

3. Day 3: Avebury and Stonehenge

   Oxford to Avebury, then Stonehenge and Bath

   • Drive about 3.5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Bath
   Day 3 details

   We check out after breakfast and leave at 9 am for the chalk downs of Wiltshire, about an hour and a quarter away. At Avebury a village sits partly inside a great henge whose stone circle is the largest in Britain, and the stones stand in sheep fields where children can walk among them and touch them; your guide tells the story of the medieval barber-surgeon found beneath a fallen stone in 1938. Lunch is a sit-down meal at the pub inside the circle, with a garden. Stonehenge is about 45 minutes south. Our timed entry is in the early afternoon: the visitor centre's exhibition first, then the reconstructed Neolithic houses outside, where children can see how people lived when the stones went up around 2500 BC, then the shuttle bus out to the circle. Stonehenge and Avebury share a UNESCO listing from 1986. About an hour more brings us to Bath, our home for two nights, at about 5 pm, with time to settle in before dinner on your own.

   Included

   • Guided walk among the Avebury stones
   • Sit-down pub lunch in Avebury
   • Stonehenge with a timed entry, the visitor centre exhibition and the Neolithic houses

   Easier option: Ride the shuttle bus both ways between the Stonehenge visitor centre and the stones, and see Avebury's stones from the level path by the village.

   More active option: Walk out from the Stonehenge visitor centre to the stones over the downs, about 2.5 km, and ride the shuttle back.

   Free time: Evening free in Bath

   Activity: About 3.25 hours of driving in three legs, the longest about 1.25 hours. About 2.5 hours on foot on grass and gravel paths.

   

4. Day 4: Bath

   A day in Bath on foot

   • Breakfast
   • Stay in Bath
   Day 4 details

   We are at the Roman Baths when they open, normally at 9 am, ahead of the coach parties that fill the walkways by late morning. Hot water still rises from the spring into the Great Bath, and the children's audio guide and the costumed Romans who are often on the terraces keep younger visitors interested while grandparents read the stones. After about two hours your guide walks the family through the Georgian city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987: past the Abbey, across Pulteney Bridge with its shops built over the Avon, and up to the Royal Crescent, the curve of thirty houses finished in 1774. The guided part ends at about 12:30 by Royal Victoria Park, which has one of the biggest free playgrounds in the city. The afternoon is free: the hotel pool if ours has one, a rowing boat or punt from the Victorian boating station on the Avon in summer, or a rest. Your guide can book an early table for dinner.

   Included

   • The Roman Baths at opening
   • Guided walk of Georgian Bath: the Abbey, Pulteney Bridge, the Circus and the Royal Crescent

   Optional experiences

   • Rowing boats and punts from Bath Boating Station (summer, extra, price shown at booking)
   • Thermae Bath Spa, for guests aged 16 and over (extra, price shown at booking)
   • No. 1 Royal Crescent, a restored Georgian house

   Easier option: Spend the afternoon at the hotel, in the playground at Royal Victoria Park or at a cafe on Abbey Green.

   More active option: Walk the Bath Skyline, a waymarked National Trust loop of about 10 km through meadows and woods above the city.

   Free time: Afternoon and evening free in Bath

   Activity: About 2.5 hours on foot in the morning, with a steady climb from the Abbey to the Royal Crescent; a taxi can take anyone up the hill.

   

5. Day 5: North by way of Chester Zoo

   Bath to Chester Zoo, then north to Ambleside in the Lake District

   • Drive about 5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Ambleside
   Day 5 details

   This is the trip's one long road day, about 425 km and 4.75 hours of driving, because it carries us from the south of England to the north. A train would mean two changes with bags and children, so we split the drive in two with about four hours at Chester Zoo, a conservation zoo of about 50 hectares with elephants, giraffes, jaguars and a tropical house of fruit bats. We leave Bath at 8:45 with a coffee and toilet stop on the M5 and reach the zoo before noon, about 2.75 hours from Bath. Lunch is included at the zoo, and the family goes round at its own pace: there are benches and cafes throughout, and mobility scooters for hire for anyone who tires. Mid-afternoon we drive about two hours north on the M6 into Cumbria and the Lake District, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2017, arriving in Ambleside at the head of Windermere at about 5:45 pm. Dinner tonight is on your own, close to the hotel.

   Included

   • Chester Zoo, about four hours on your own or with your guide
   • Lunch at Chester Zoo
   • Drive into the Lake District to Ambleside

   Easier option: Hire a mobility scooter or wheelchair at the zoo entrance (book ahead; we arrange it) and keep to the main paths.

   More active option: Walk the full zoo loop, about 6 km of paths, with your guide's map.

   Free time: Evening free in Ambleside

   Activity: The longest drive of the trip, over the 4 hour cap: two legs of about 2.75 and 2 hours, broken by a coffee stop and about four hours at the zoo. About 2 to 4 hours on foot on level paved paths, as much as you choose.

6. Day 6: Beatrix Potter country and the lake

   Ambleside to Hill Top and Hawkshead, the Windermere ferry to Bowness, then back to Ambleside by boat

   • Drive about 45 min
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Ambleside
   Day 6 details

   We cross to the quiet west side of Windermere for one of the first timed entries of the day at Hill Top, the 17th-century farmhouse Beatrix Potter bought in 1905 with the earnings from The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Children who know the books find the rooms and the garden gate from the pictures; the house is small, so the early slot is the calmest. Hawkshead, a few minutes on, is a village of whitewashed houses where we sit down to lunch together. In the early afternoon the minibus rolls onto the Windermere ferry, a small cable ferry that has crossed the lake at this point for centuries, for the ten-minute crossing to Bowness. There we visit the World of Beatrix Potter, where the characters are set in model scenes from the stories, then board a Windermere Lake Cruises boat north to Waterhead, a short walk from our hotel in Ambleside. We are back by about 4 pm, with a free late afternoon and evening.

   Included

   • Hill Top, Beatrix Potter's house, on an early timed entry
   • Sit-down lunch in Hawkshead
   • The Windermere ferry from Far Sawrey to Bowness
   • The World of Beatrix Potter, Bowness
   • Windermere cruise from Bowness to Waterhead (Ambleside)

   Optional experiences

   • The Beatrix Potter Gallery in Hawkshead, with her original drawings (National Trust, extra)

   Easier option: Wait in the Hill Top garden or the village tearoom while the family goes round the house; Hill Top has steep, narrow stairs.

   More active option: Walk from Hawkshead to Hill Top and back over the fields, about 5 km, before lunch.

   Free time: Late afternoon and evening free in Ambleside

   Activity: About 1.5 hours on foot on level ground; Hill Top has steep narrow stairs inside.

7. Day 7: Grasmere and Derwentwater

   Ambleside to Grasmere and Keswick, the Derwentwater launch, then back to Ambleside

   • Drive about 1.5 h
   • Breakfast and dinner
   • Stay in Ambleside
   Day 7 details

   Grasmere comes first, a few minutes north, for the small shop by the churchyard lychgate that has sold Grasmere gingerbread since the 19th century, and a look at William Wordsworth's grave in St Oswald's churchyard. Over Dunmail Raise and past Thirlmere we reach Keswick and take the launch out onto Derwentwater. Here the family splits for the morning if it wants to: walkers of about 8 and over, parents and fit grandparents, step off at Hawes End and climb Catbells with your guide, the hill the Lakes often give children as their first fell; everyone else rides the full circuit of the lake and walks the short level path to Friars' Crag for the view up Borrowdale. We meet again in Keswick for lunch on your own and drive back to Ambleside by about 2:30. The afternoon is for the hotel pool if ours has one, a rowing boat from Waterhead, or a rest, and dinner tonight is together at a Lakeland inn at about 6 pm.

   Included

   • Grasmere: the gingerbread shop and St Oswald's churchyard
   • Derwentwater launch from Keswick, the full circuit or to Hawes End
   • Guided climb of Catbells for those who want it
   • Early dinner together at a Lakeland inn

   Optional experiences

   • Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum, Grasmere
   • Rowing boat hire at Waterhead, Ambleside (extra, price shown at booking)

   Easier option: Ride the launch around the whole lake and walk the level path to Friars' Crag, about 1 km each way.

   More active option: Climb Catbells (451 m) from Hawes End with your guide, about 5 km and 360 m of ascent, with a short rocky scramble near the top, and come down to the launch.

   Free time: Afternoon free in Ambleside

   Activity: Catbells takes about 2.5 hours and is steep and rocky near the summit; children climb it with an adult and the guide decides on the day if wind or rain make it unwise. The easy option is level lakeshore walking.

   

8. Day 8: Wensleydale cheese and Aysgarth Falls

   Ambleside to Hawes and Aysgarth Falls, then York

   • Drive about 3.5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in York
   Day 8 details

   We leave the Lakes at 9 am and cross east into the Yorkshire Dales by Sedbergh and the long green valley of Wensleydale, stone barns and dry-stone walls running up the fellsides. Hawes is about an hour and a half away. Its Wensleydale Creamery has a viewing gallery over the cheese-making, a small museum and tastings, and children who know Wallace and Gromit know the cheese. Lunch is a sit-down meal in Hawes. Fifteen minutes down the dale, the River Ure drops over three wide limestone steps at Aysgarth Falls, and a woodland path links the Upper, Middle and Lower Falls; on a warm day children paddle at the edges of the Upper Falls with an adult. York is about an hour and three-quarters away by Leyburn and the plain of York, and we arrive at about 4:30 pm, with time to settle in and an evening free inside the city walls.

   Included

   • Wensleydale Creamery visitor centre and cheese tasting, Hawes
   • Sit-down lunch in Hawes
   • Aysgarth Falls woodland walk

   Easier option: See the Upper Falls from the viewpoint by the bridge, a few minutes from the car park.

   More active option: Walk the full riverside path to the Lower Falls at Aysgarth, about 2 km there and back.

   Free time: Evening free in York

   Activity: About 3.5 hours of driving in three legs, the longest about 1.75 hours. About 1.5 hours on foot on woodland paths and pavements; rocks by the falls are slippery.

9. Day 9: York

   A day in York on foot

   • Breakfast and dinner
   • Stay in York
   Day 9 details

   We start at about 9:15 in the Shambles, the narrow medieval street of overhanging timber-framed houses, while it is still quiet; its wizard-themed shops make it a favourite with Harry Potter fans, though the films were not shot here. Your guide then climbs onto the city walls at Bootham Bar and follows them round to Monk Bar, with the towers of York Minster above the rooftops; the parapet is high and the stretch takes about 40 minutes. Late morning is our timed entry at Jorvik Viking Centre, where a slow ride carries the family through a rebuilt Viking street of about 975, on the site where archaeologists dug it up, with sounds and smells. Lunch is on your own. The afternoon is free: the National Railway Museum is free to enter and has the Mallard, a Japanese bullet train and the old royal carriages, or the Minster, or a rest. In the evening we sit down together for an early farewell dinner in the city.

   Included

   • The Shambles early, before the shops open
   • Guided walk on the city walls from Bootham Bar to Monk Bar
   • Jorvik Viking Centre with a timed entry
   • Early farewell dinner in York

   Optional experiences

   • York Minster and its tower climb (tower for ages 8 and up; extra, price shown at booking)
   • The National Railway Museum (free entry)
   • A York river cruise on the Ouse

   Easier option: Skip the walls and meet the group at Monk Bar, or ride the short distance to Jorvik by taxi.

   More active option: Walk the whole 3.4 km circuit of the walls in the afternoon.

   Free time: Afternoon free in York

   Activity: About 2.5 hours on foot, with steps up to the walls and narrow wall paths with a parapet on one side.

10. Day 10: York to London

    York by train to London King's Cross

    • By train
    • Breakfast
    Day 10 details

    After breakfast the minibus takes you and your bags the short distance to York station, just outside the city walls, and your guide sees the family onto a direct train to London King's Cross. The journey takes about two hours down the East Coast Main Line, past flat Lincolnshire farmland and the towers of Peterborough Cathedral, and you reach central London around midday. Seats together are reserved for each family. From King's Cross St Pancras the Piccadilly line runs direct to Heathrow in about an hour, Thameslink trains from St Pancras reach Gatwick in about an hour, and St Pancras International for Eurostar is next door. If you are flying home today, book a flight leaving after about 5 pm from Heathrow or Gatwick. If you would rather stay on in London with the children, or continue north from York to Edinburgh and join our Scotland trip for three generations, ask us and we can book extra nights and tickets for you.

    Included

    • Transfer with your bags to York station
    • Standard-class train from York to London King's Cross, with seats together for each family

    Activity: Book a flight from Heathrow or Gatwick leaving after about 5 pm.

Wildlife and weather: April and May bring lambs to the Cotswold and Lakeland fields and lambing season at the Farm Park; June to August are the warmest and busiest months and match school holidays; September and October are quieter, with autumn colour in the Lakes and the Dales. Rain is likely at some point in any month, so each day has an indoor alternative, and the guide can swap the two Lakes days to catch the drier one for Catbells and the lake boats.

• Oxford2 nights
• Bath2 nights
• Ambleside3 nights
• York2 nights