Travels in England

In June 2017, my husband, sister-in-law, nephew and I took a two-and-a-half week trip to England. I took nearly 1,000 photos! It amazes me how much we managed to see and do in that amount of time! Here are some thoughts from our travels in England:

First, if you love gardening, the very best months to see gardens are June and July. That’s because roses and perennials will be at the peak of blooming and will be a feast for your eyes.

Garden memberships

Second, there are two memberships that are worth having if you really want to visit amazing gardens. Those are National Trust and the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). With either or both of those memberships, you will have the opportunity to visit some beautiful gardens.

Memberships are not expensive. To belong to the National Trust, you can join for a year’s time (about $83, or $130 for a couple). Or join for one week (about $37) or for 2 weeks (about $44). A membership in the RHS costs about $76.

Both the National Trust and the Royal Horticultural Society have so many gardens that you can visit for free. This offers you a lot of flexibility. Let’s say you’re driving past one of their open gardens. You can check it out without having to worry about added costs. We did that a lot. I love how the National Trust gardens tend to have cafes with tasty food. That way, you don’t have to track down a place to eat during your day.

So far, we only have a membership in the National Trust. But we will definitely join the RHS the next time we head over there.

Our itinerary

Now, back to our trip itinerary: we landed at Heathrow and stayed at a nearby hotel overnight (knowing we’d be renting a car the next morning and heading for the countryside). We spent 3 nights in Royal Tunbridge Wells, 2 nights in Salisbury, 4 nights in Plymouth, 2 nights in Bath, 3 nights in Stratford-upon-Avon, and finally headed back to Heathrow overnight before flying home the next morning. We covered a lot of territory but if you look at a map of England, you’ll notice we primarily visited southern England from east to west, and the up to the Midlands area for a few days.

For the past 10 days, I’ve been posting some photos of beautiful gardens we visited during our trip on my Facebook page. If you’ve missed them, be sure to check them out. I’ll be posting more photos here and on Facebook in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned!

(Photo ID from top to bottom: Chartwell, Sissinghurst Castle, Stourhead, Sheffield Park. Remember that you can click on any of them to view a much larger image.)