Hi all, Apologies if this is in the wrong place (I still haven't quite figured out the new Bigsoccer format, haha). I will be traveling to England in late December through mid-January (I'll be TA-ing a class on theatre in London, and seeing a slew of wonderful plays). I'm going to fly over a few days early, and wondered if you would be kind enough to offer some travel suggestions. I'll be spending the majority of my time in London for the class (which is fine by me as a total Brit-Lit fanatic), but I would like to see some other areas of England and Europe as well if feasible. How difficult is it to do a day trip to someplace like Paris, Scotland or Ireland? Would it make more sense, for example, if I flew into Ireland, spent a day or two, and then went to London, or is it just as easy to set up in London and then travel to those places? Where is the best place to get quality football jersey's (I'm particularly hoping to pick up a nice Swansea shirt, preferably somewhere where I can get Gio Savarese's name/number put on it--I know it's a small team and a lesser-known player, but Gio was my favorite player from when I was a kid, haha). I know the big, tourist-y places in London that I want to hit (the Tower, Poet's Corner, the day trip to Stratford, etc)--what "off-the-beaten-path" recommendations would you guys make? Where's the best (preferably inexpensive) place to eat? Stuff like that. Also, while I know they don't do shows during the winter, do you know if the Globe is open for tours and what not? Any info along these (or any other) lines would be much appreciated. Again, apologies if this is in the wrong forum. Thanks!
http://www.seat61.com/London-to-Paris-by-train.htm#.UDFxg6MizDc I guess you could go to Paris pretty easily on the Eurostar train from London. I guess that is the easiest direct travel route to another country. Other places would involve short flights ,so you would have to book plane tickets. London to Dublin is a 1 hour flight for example .
Norwich is well worth a visit not to far from London and obviously has a decent football team and doesn't have a lot of tourists.
A bit late, but Paris is easily done within a day from London. It takes about 2 hours 15 minutes by eurostar, so accounting for the timezone difference just over 3 hours so you can easily fit a lot into a day if you leave early. I have done this before, it is a LOT cheaper to book well in advance if you know the dates you're going.