Chester, England
planning spring trip.....should i visit Chester....recommendations.....pro...con... thanks.....
dorothy
spring hill, tn usa 11/14/09
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Chester is a pretty city with a lot of medieval architecture. It seemed touristy to me and the biggest attraction appeared to be shopping. Since I don't like to eat up my vacation time shopping, it wasn't one of my favorite stops.
As Brad says its a nice enough place with the old medieval city walls, cathedral etc, but I wouldn't say its outstanding compared with other medieval walled cities like York Or Canterbury or indded other citirs with atmospheric centres like Bath and Edinburgh.
I spent a few hours there... was interesting to walk some of the walls. Wouldn't visit it again, and would recommend many other places ahead of it.
thank you for all the replies....appreciate the comments.....have visited 13 cities in uk beside the obvious london...looking for some place new.....again, thanks...
Dorothy, I spent an enjoyable day in Lincoln this past August. There is a beautiful cathedral, a castle which is now mostly walls [we walked around and enjoyed the view and the breeze], a copy of the Magna Carta, and a nice little museum that covers the local history from pre-Roman days. The museum had lots of info about other sights, but we only had a day. Also I ate my first mushy peas over French fries there. Probably also my last mushy peas over French fries... Let us know what cities you have already visited, and you'll probably get more suggestions about new places to try.
How about visiting the east of England inc East Anglia. Cathedral cities such as Norwich and Ely, towns like Stamford in Lincolnshire.
http://www.stamford.co.uk/
It has a wide variety of landscapes from chocolate box pretty to big skies, think Constable paintings. North Essex and Suffolk have some lovely little villages and towns eg Lavenham. The town and village names should ring bells with visitors from New England.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/uk/3441189/Lavenham-Suffolk-My-kind-of-town.html
A rental car would be advisable because convenient public transport is mainly limited to routes between main connurbations.
You have probably been to York already. If not, it's one of my favorites (along with Bath and Oxford, which I'm sure you have visited).
I've made a bunch of trips to the UK. On one of the recent ones I went to Chester since since I never had been there and the name sounded intersting. (You can pretty much count on anything with "chester" in it's name having Roman origins.) A waste of time, as others have said.
With that many cities, you've probably pretty well done England and maybe the south of Scotland. For something different, you might consider touring the coast of Wales. Plenty of interesting towns and villages and absolutely the best castles in the world. Cardiff to Conwy (or counterclockwise, it doesn't matter) is an easy four days drive with plenty of stopping time. Maybe six days if you poke around Pembrokeshire. Iron age hillforts all over the place if you are interested in those as well as a bunch of cairns and such.
Hello Dorothy, When our friends go to London and ask for recommendations for a bit of the countryside, I suggest the following circuit (involves a bit of backtracking) ---you can start it at any point and go either direction---it's a total of about 500 miles of driving: Winchester, Salisbury, Stonehenge, Avebury, Maiden Castle, Glastonbury, Wells, Warwick Castle, Kenilworth Castle. Coventry Cathedral is also supposed to be fascinating, but we haven't been there yet. If you look at a map, you will notice that that area has lots of historic attractions and the scenery is very pleasant, although not spectacular like Scotland or Cornwall. Lots of lovely old pubs and inns, too. Also Stratford, Oxford, Cotswolds, but you have probably already visited those.