Go Advice:Your questions answered
Q I would like to take my 13-year-old daughter to England by ferry and train. Over a week or so, we would like to visit London to see ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and spend a day or two there. We then want to visit Alton Towers, Longleat House, and other places of interest before going to Lincoln and York to stay with relations.
GS, Monaghan
The cheapest way to get to London is to buy a ferry ticket that combines rail travel; try irishferries.com, stenaline.ie or a bus ticket from Eurolines, eurolines.ie.
You can travel around England on a Rover seven-day pass for £430 (about €502) for adults and £284 (about €332) for children under 16. The Rover pass offers unlimited train travel and you can book on nationalrail.co.uk. You can also see how to plan trips by public transport on transportdirect.info. Bus and coach travel may be better value. Phantom of the Operais on in Her Majesty's Theatre, Haymarket and you can buy tickets online on thephantomoftheopera.com. They have a deal with lunch or dinner in the Haymarket Hotel and show tickets cost from £59 (about €69).
Plan your sightseeing in London with help from visitlondon.com. There is also a accommodation on this site.
Places worth visiting are the London Eye, Natural History Museum, London Dungeon, the Tower of London and too many more to name for your limited time.
Longleat is near Warminster and you can take the train from Waterloo. You will need to take a taxi from the station. See longleat.co.uk.
From Longleat take the train to Salisbury, about 30 minutes, or a taxi and you will then have an opportunity to explore this medieval city and also see Stonehenge. See visitwiltshire.co.uk/salisbury for details of accommodation and buses to Stonehenge.
Also in this area you have the option of going to Bath for a day, to explore Bath Abbey, the Roman baths, and the Jane Austen Centre.
Having explored Bath and stayed overnight you could then travel to Stratford-on-Avon to explore Shakespeare’s birthplace, and a quaint town, shakespeare-country.co.uk.
The train from Stratford to Uttoxeter takes about two hours and you can take the coach from here to Alton Towers. There are two hotels on site. Try to arrive as early as possible in Alton Towers (altontowers.com).
The journey from Staffordshire to Lincoln takes over two hours and you must see Lincoln Cathedral which was used in the Da Vinci Code film as Westminster Cathedral.
The final leg of your journey from Lincoln to York can take only one-and-a-half hours on a fast train. York is a beautiful city and there are many things to see.
Take a walk on top of the city walls, visit York Minster and see the Shambles, the most picturesque street in England. The ghost walk is also fun (yorkshire.com).
When planning your trip you can consult visitbritain.com and enjoyengland.com for information. See also travelforkids.com. Hotels can be booked on their sites too.
Q My friend and I are in our 20s and travelling to Budapest at the end of June. We are going for a week and have planned to visit Lake Balaton for two days. What are the best forms of transport there and where would be best to visit and stay for a short stay on a low budget?
AOC, Dublin
Lake Balaton is the largest lake in central Europe and the holiday playground of the Hungarians. The lake is ringed with popular tourist towns. The town of Siofok has a lively nightlife and good clubs with DJs from Germany, Holland and the UK.
You can get to Siofok from Budapest by train. There are regular services from Keletí Station, and it takes just under two hours (mav-start.hu). There is a good selection of accommodation in Siofok, some of which can be booked on hotels.com and others you can see on siofok.hu. Further information is available on siofok-city.com. Accommodation is reasonable and I have seen hotels from €38 per room per night and hostelworld.com has places from €11pps.
Go contact:E-mail your questions, with your name and address, to jscales@irishtimes.com