FOOTLOOSE AND CAR FREE IN THE UK

Adventuresome students who want to explore the UK will be amazed at what you can see over a short weekend and by train. One of the great experiences for car-centric Americans is all you see from the trains.

Something you may be intrigued by is the idea that there are public, right-of-way walking paths through private property in the English countryside. There even was a dispute a couple of years ago about the rights of the public to tromp through Madonna's private estate. Some of these suggestions will appeal to those who like to lace on hiking boots and commune with sheep and others who like castles, caves, pirates and pubs.

To check train times for any of the places mentioned below, click on http://www.thetrainline.com. If you're convinced you want to check any of them out, you should get a UK or England-only Rail Pass available at http://www.raileurope.com. The passes may seem expensive but are great bargains when compared to individual tickets. You again can compare prices at The Trainline. You may think that some of these destinations require a long time on the train, but you'll find half the fun is seeing the constantly-changing British countryside, towns, castles, nuclear power plants and huge chalk figures on hillsides, or else, it's a perfect place to catch up on your reading.

THE USUAL MORE-URBAN SUSPECTS

Edinburgh: It only takes a little more than 5 hours by train to travel north through spectacular countryside of England, along the North Sea Coast and over the border to Scotland. Edinburgh is much like a European city with an imposing, centuries-old, never-conquered Castle looming over the town and lots of young people as well. One advantage of Edinburgh is its size. It's large enough and unusual enough to let you know you've come to a very different, historic country but you also can find your way around easily and don't need a day or so to get acclimated like in some cities. Students who went last year were enchanted.

Inverness: If you have enough time, you can travel another 4 hours by train north of Edinburgh to Inverness where you can do some monster-chasing on Loch Ness, a lovely lake surrounded by forest with boats to introduce you to the Loch Ness Monster legend.

* If you're planning to take the train to Edinburgh and buy a rail pass in advance, you need to get a UK Rail Pass which covers England, Scotland and Wales and not a slightly less expensive England-only pass.

Bath: It's a not-to-be-missed day-trip from London, just 1.5 hours by train plus there are bus tours leaving from local hotels which will take you to Bath and Stonehenge. In Bath, you can visit fascinating, excavated Roman Baths as well as see a classic example of a Georgian town. Aficionados of modern-day spas can see their ancient origins. Those fans of Jane Austen can visit where she lived and wrote. Bath is set along a river and has a bridge of shops which crosses the water. Stonehenge is fairly close and certainly is one of the iconic sights in England. It's worth seeing but now is blocked off so that you can't walk among the stones and is quite touristy.

Cambridge and Oxford: The two most noteworthy university towns in England are each small enough for perfect day trips each only about an hour from London. Their architecture is mind-boggling. In Cambridge you can "punt" on the Cam River, hiring your own boat to pole on the shallow river through the town and along the "backs" of the colleges or let someone else do the work for you. (You'll be besieged by offers to punt once you near the river.) You also can stop at the pub The Eagle which is covered with names written by American airmen stationed during World War II and also where Watson and Crick speculated about DNA on a pub napkin.

Stratford-Upon-Avon: The birthplace of Shakespeare is very touristy and crowded but you'll see thatched roofs and experience the life of England's most notable playwright. It's definitely a daytrip and can be done on tour bus but also can be reached by trains in about 2.5 hours.

Brighton: You'll find a quintessential, rather kitschy, gingerbread British seaside resort, just 1.5 hours south of London, a quick trip by train. Don't expect sand. The beach is made of small pebbles but it's a close-by place to relax and see how the British enjoy the sea. Students tired of weekend trips to Europe have spent time unwinding in Brighton before exams.

Dover: A mere two hours by train from London are the famous White Cliffs of Dover which welcomed home airmen in World War II. It's pretty remarkable to see huge cliffs of white chalk. But also, there's a castle at Dover which spans the course of British history from the Iron Age to Roman times to tunnels beneath where commanders planned the Dunkirk invasion.

FURTHER AFIELD FOR SURF, CLIFF WALKS, CAVES, PIRATES AND SHEEP, SHEEP, SHEEP

Lake District: If you want to get away from the crowds, head to the picturesque rural hills and breathtaking lakes of England, home of Wordsworth and other Romantic poets, about 4 hours northwest of London. If you like to "amble" along paths next to small lakes, waterfalls, pretty hills and picture-book towns, the District is a great place to spend a weekend. The hike between Ambleside and Grasmere crosses over small bridges, past caves and Wordsworth's several homes. Grasmere is where gingerbread was created although it's more like a cookie than the cake we have here. Ambleside has a quirky football (soccer) museum. You also can take a ferry around Lake Windermere where there's a nice hostel. If anyone happened to see Miss Potter about the author of Peter Rabbit (it seems most didn't see it,) you know that Beatrix Potter purchased many of the farms in the Lake District and helped preserve it from development.
Cotswolds: This perhaps is the most famous of the hill regions with great walking and postcard scenes. It's what you imagine rural England would be with stone villages named Chipping Campden and Stow-on-the-Wold. It's close but a little more difficult to reach by train, however definitely possible.

Cornwall: On the western tip of England, Cornwall takes about 6 hours to reach by train. For many, it's the favorite part of the country. Before the program began one summer, one of the students went to Newquay which is, unbelievably, the surfing capital of England. Not far from it is St. Ives. It's a fun, artists-colony town with a harbor that completely empties during low tide, leaving all the boats tipped onto the sand, quite an amazing thing to see. The rescue boat has a tractor to pull it out to sea when the tide is low. From St. Ives, you can walk on the rocky Coastal Path several hours to a tiny place called Zennor with a famous pub and a church with a Mermaid Chair since it was thought mermaids lured sailors to their deaths. The hike truly looks like Hawaii with blue-green water and black rocks and stone walls in the fields that date back to the Bronze Age. Penzance, as in Pirates of Penzance, also is in Cornwall. Close-by is Mt. St. Michael's, similar to Mont St. Michel in France. It's a small island topped with a huge monastery. When the tide is out, you can walk to the island over a stone pathway. Padstow now is the home of celebrity chef Rick Stein who has opened several restaurants, a café and fish and chips place. From Padstow you can take a bus and then walk along the coastal path to see the famous Bedruthan Steps, a stepping-stone line of huge rocks along a stunning coastline. You also can take a short ferry ride across the bay to a town where Princes William and Harry are known to summer plus you can walk to a church which at one time was buried by sand then exposed by a storm.

Peak District: This rural region in the mid-section of England is known for its many caves. You can go into them to see stalactites, stalagmites, underground rivers, and huge boulders of a unique stone called Blue John which is made into jewelry plus walk through huge fields with those ubiquitous sheep I mentioned. The Peak District also is where the Bronte sisters lived and wrote Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

Yorkshire Dales: Here again, beautiful rural rolling hills offer great hiking where you can climb over stiles (small wooden ladders which straddle fences,) and pass through "kissing gates." You will find it true that the people of Yorkshire are about the most friendly in England and they take their soccer, cricket and rugby very seriously. The Yorkshire Dales also are known for their Sunday concerts in the square performed by their local brass bands. There are lots of kinds of cheeses from the Dales and you may have heard of Yorkshire Pudding. The city of York is a great walled city and well worth a day's exploration.

Whitby: A fantastic place 5 hours from London on the North Sea coast, about three-quarters of the way to Edinburgh, is the North York Moors National Park with Whitby, once a famous whaling port, on the water. For fans of Dracula, it's the place to visit. Bram Stoker spent a summer in Whitby when a Russian boat foundered on the shoreline. It gave him the idea for Dracula and the town includes the graveyard setting of the book. It also has a looming ruins of an abbey and was where Captain James Cook set off for his explorations of New Zealand, Australia and the South Pacific. From Whitby, you can walk south along the coast to Robin Hood's Bay, a onetime smuggling cove. Whitby also has one of the best fish and chips restaurants we've found.

Hadrian's Wall: If you know your Roman history, you'll recognize the monumental wall that the Emperor Hadrian had built across the narrowest part of England in 122 A.D. A good portion of it has been restored and it's possible to walk along the wall from one fortification to another. There's a youth hostel in Twice Brewed, a stop along the wall which was named because the workers on the wall wanted their ale to be brewed stronger. There's bus service from the town of Hexham which stops at all the major points and forts along the wall. The train can take you from London to Hexham in about 4 hours.

Dartmoor National Park: If something's designated a national park, just like in the U.S., it's worth exploring. You have to be fairly focused to make your way by bus into Dartmoor from nearby Plymouth (from where the Pilgrims set off). But, once you're there, it's other-worldly. To set the scene, read Sherlock Holmes' Hound of the Baskervilles, set on Dartmoor. In the town of Princetown, there's a former hotel where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stayed and now is a small Holmes Museum and Visitor's Center. From there, you can walk out on the Moors and climb rocky outcroppings known as Tors. Wild ponies roam the Moors and you're likely to come across them plus you'll find stones from early Bronze Age buildings. Take care to keep your bearings, Dartmoor is the place we became the most lost while hiking and it's pretty wild and desolate.

Totnes/Dartmouth: Also in the Southwest of England is the small historic town Totnes, about 3.5 hours by train. One year in Totnes, some Southwestern people happened upon the place they were building a massive catamaran for a round-the-world sail-powered race which later foundered and sank on a trial voyage on the North Sea. From Totnes, you can take a regularly-scheduled trip down the river past the former home of crime-writer Agatha Christie to Dartmouth with the Royal Naval College and the ruins of a castle set out to guard the entrance to the channel of the River Dart. On the boat you go through a bay that during World War II was filled with so many naval vessels that it's said a person could walk from one ship to another all the way across the water.

Lynmouth/Lynton: These two towns in the region of Devon are on the top of a hill and on the water below. There's a gravity-powered funicular that takes you up and down between them. From there, you easily can walk to the Valley of the Rocks on a dramatic coastline with wild goats climbing sheer cliffsides. If you have a fear of heights, it may not be the best place to hike but if not, the northern Devon coast is one of the most beautiful coastlines in England. To get to Lynmouth, you can take the train to Barnstaple and a bus to the coast. To travel back on Sunday we had to take a bus to Minehead and another to Taunton to pick up the train back to London. Sunday bus service in England is more limited than on other days.

Lyme Regis: The southern Dorset region with Lyme Regis as its center is known as the Jurassic Coast because it's home to dinosaur and ammonite fossils. Lyme Regis is a pretty seaside town with a black-rock jetty known as The Cobb. There's an old (well, late 1960s) book and movie The French Lieutenant's Woman starring Meryl Streep which is set in Lyme Regis and has a famous scene on The Cobb. Jane Austen also set part of her love story Persuasion in Lyme Regis where a young woman fell from a rocky outcropping stairway on the Cobb that still you can climb. Just down the beach from Lyme Regis is Charmouth Beach where fossil hunters hammer at the rocks to find fossils. When the tide is out, you can walk back to Lyme Regis along the rocks and beach past the limestone cliff where a young Victorian girl named Mary Anning looked up and discovered the first fossil of an ichthyosaurus, or fish lizard. Mary Anning, by the way, was struck by lightning when she was a small child. The stories say that she was a "dull" child prior to her near-death experience but emerged brilliant after the lightning struck. That doesn't seem a worthwhile way to improve your IQ. To get to Lyme Regis, you take the train to Axminster and then a bus to the coast.

Snowdonia, Wales: The trains heading north easily cross the border between England and Wales. In the north of Wales, is a mountainous region called Snowdonia with a great little town accessible by rail called the unpronounceable Betws-y-coed.  It takes about 4 hours by train. It's a beautiful, foresty town with hikes to waterfalls and fields. You can head on a bit on the train to the coastal town of Llandudno with a huge beach.

*A reminder that if you're going to travel to Wales by train you'll need the UK train pass and not the one for England-only.