Where to Stay En-Route

Hello to the POE community.  I will be in England later on this year to do some much anticipated walking in the beautiful English countryside.  I was hoping someone might be able to help me with a recommendation of where to stay en-route between two tours I am doing.  Tour 1 will finish at Manchester Piccadilly railway station approx 5.00pm on Friday 14th Sept.  Tour 2 commences in St Ives (Cornwall) on Saturday 15th Sept but I won't need to arrive at St Ives until early afternoon on the Saturday.

Wanting to avoid a long train trip in one single day, my preference is to travel from Manchester Piccadilly station to "somewhere" en-route to St Ives and spend the night in a nice town or village "somewhere".  My plan then is to spend the next morning exploring this nice town or village before hopping on the train again and completing my journey to St Ives; with the aim of arriving early to mid-afternoon.

The problem I have is, I don't know where to stay ... does anyone have any recommendations of a nice and charming town or village in which I can stay for the night ... somewhere that is on a train route between Manchester and St Ives - avoiding what could be an arduous journey (if done in the one day) and using it as an opportunity to see one more beautiful village or town?

Many thanks

Sophie

Hi Sophie and welcome to POE from Anna and Ron.

Whatever you choose to do, please try to support POE by securely booking online your accommodation in the UK at http://www.picturesofengland.com/hotels/ where you will get all accommodation cheaper than going direct.

Thanks in anticipation.

Thank you both Ron and Dave.  

Dave, thank you for the tip ... I will start looking in the Gloucester - Bristol area and see what I find.  I know I'll enjoy the research as much as finding my destination for the night.

Ron, I will definitely make this site my first port-of-call for booking my accommodation.

Thank you both for your speedy response.   

Hello Sophia, Looking at the time between the finish of Tour One and the start of Tour Two, I don't think you will have much time for sight-seeing at your stop-over. Assuming you are travelling by train, the best journey time from Manchester Piccadilly to St. Ives is about 8 hours. Unfortunately there is no direct route between Manchester and St Ives (the fastest route seems to be via Birmingham and Exeter). Exeter is an interesting city, but I don't think you will have enough time to see much of it.

I would suggest looking at the National Rail Enquiries site  http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/index.html to get an idea of the route options.

Many thanks for the heads up Edward re the total travelling time.  Looks like any significant sightseeing will not work ... that's ok ... I can plan around that then.  The main thing is to get to my destination on time.  Thanks also for the link to national rail - look like a fantastic resource to plan my journeys and I'll definitely make use of it for all my rail travel across the UK.

 Cheers

Sophie