The Rough Guide to Great Britain (Travel Guide eBook)

Rough Guides

Description

Discover Rough Guides' home patch with the most incisive and entertaining guidebook on the market. Whether you plan to tuck into a balti in Birmingham, get your thrills at Blackpool Pleasure Beach or tackle Scotland's majestic North Coast 500, The Rough Guide to Great Britain will show you the ideal places to sleep, eat, drink, shop and visit along the way.
- Independent, trusted reviews written with Rough Guides' trademark blend of humour, honesty and insight, to help you get the most out of your visit, with options to suit every budget.
- Full-colour maps throughout - navigate the medieval lanes of York or Bath's Georgian streets without needing to get online.
- Stunning images - a rich collection of inspiring colour photography.
-Things not to miss - Rough Guides' rundown of Britain's best sights and experiences.
- Itineraries - carefully planned routes to help you organize your trip.
- Detailed regional coverage- whether off the beaten track or in more mainstream tourist destinations, this travel guide has in-depth practical advice for every step of the way.
Areas covered include: London and the southeast; the Cotswolds; Bath, Bristol and the southwest; East Anglia; the Midlands and the Peak District; Leeds, Manchester and the northwest; Yorkshire; Newcastle and the northeast; Cardiff and South Wales; Snowdonia; Edinburgh and the Lothians; Glasgow and the Clyde; the Scottish Highlands and Islands. Attractions include: Hampton Court Palace; Oxford's colleges; the Eden Project; Manchester's Northern Quarter; Hadrian's Wall; the Lake District; Portmeirion; Welsh castles; Edinburgh Festival and the West Highland Railway.
- Basics - essential pre-departure practical information including getting there, local transport, accommodation, food and drink, the media, festivals and events, sports and outdoor activities.
- Background information - a Contexts chapter devoted to history and film, plus recommended books.
Make the Most of Your Time on Earth with The Rough Guide to Great Britain.

Sujets

• Inglaterra
• Travel
• Great Britain
• England
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Apa Publications
• Date de parution: 04 août 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781789194920
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 39 Mo

Extrait

THE ROUGH GUIDE TO
GREAT BRITAIN
This tenth edition updated by
Rob Andrews, Tim Burford, Samantha Cook, Greg Dickinson, Matthew Hancock, Rob Humphreys, Phil Lee, David Leffman, Norm Longley, Mike MacEacheran, Rachel Mills, Keith Munro, Alice Park, Claire Saunders, James Stewart, Matthew Teller and Amanda Tomlin
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Alamy
TENBY, WALES
Contents
INTRODUCTION
Where to go
When to go
Author picks
Things not to miss
Itineraries
BASICS
Getting there
Getting around
Accommodation
Food and drink
Festivals and events
Sports and outdoor activities
Travel essentials
THE GUIDE
1 London
2 The Southeast
3 Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire
4 Oxfordshire, the Cotswolds and around
5 Bath, Bristol and Somerset
6 Devon and Cornwall
7 East Anglia
8 The West Midlands and the Peak District
9 The East Midlands
10 The Northwest
11 Cumbria and the Lakes
12 Yorkshire
13 The Northeast
14 South Wales
15 Mid-Wales
16 North Wales
17 Edinburgh and the Lothians
18 Southern Scotland
19 Glasgow and the Clyde
20 Central Scotland
21 Argyll
22 Northeast Scotland
23 The Highland region
24 Skye and the Western Isles
25 Orkney and Shetland
CONTEXTS
History
Books
Film
SMALL PRINT & INDEX
iStock
Introduction to Great Britain
If you didn’t know that the “Great” in Great Britain was strictly a geographical term (it refers to the largest island – containing England, Scotland and Wales – of the British Isles), you’d be tempted to give Britain the accolade anyway. It’s hard to think of another country that’s given so much to the world – railways to royalty, shipbuilding to Shakespeare, football to fish and chips – and there are few holiday destinations suffused with as much history, based on more than five thousand years of settlement and a proud record of stability, democracy and invention. From dynamic London to misty Scottish mountains, fishing villages to futuristic cityscapes – and whether you’re looking for urban adventures, pagan festivals, cutting-edge galleries, world-class museums, wilderness hikes or majestic buildings – Britain is undoubtedly great.
Of course, the kind of time you have here depends on which Britain you visit – which sounds odd until you take on board that we’re talking about three different countries and three distinct national identities, all wrapped up in a relatively modest-sized “United Kingdom” on the western edge of Europe. England, Scotland and Wales have had centuries to get used to each other, but even so there are sharp reminders of past conflicts and present politics at every turn – from mighty border castles to proud, devolved parliaments – while you’ll find separate “national” cultural collections in the three very different capital cities of London, Cardiff and Edinburgh. You’re not walking into any kind of vicious separatist clamour, but it’s as well to remember that England (by far the dominant country) is not the same thing as Britain – even if the English sometimes act that way.
As well as the national variations that spice up any visit, there’s also huge regional diversity in Britain – from the myriad accents and dialects that puzzle foreigners to the dramatically diverse landscapes. Bucolic Britain is still easy to find, be it in gentle rolling farmland or alpine peaks and lakes, and tradition and heritage still underpins much that is unique about the great British countryside. But increasingly it’s Britain’s urban culture – innovative arts and music, challenging architecture, trend-setting nightlife – that the tourist authorities choose to promote.
In recent years Britain has showcased its international hosting skills with gusto, not least with the staging of the London 2012 Olympics and Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, each of which went above and beyond the nation’s ever-modest expectations – in terms of both execution and medal count – and placed the British Isles on the podium of global attention once again.
Britain has also been at the heart of some seismic political happenings in recent times: in 2014 the Scottish public voted in an independence referendum, opting to remain part of the union but only by an unexpectedly fine margin; then, in 2016, a UK-wide referendum on European Union membership resulted in a majority vote to leave (again, by the slimmest of margins). Despite these uncertain times, and with the full ramifications of Brexit yet to be played out, there’s no doubt that Blighty is still a hugely rewarding place to visit.
Where to go
There’s enough to see and do in Britain to swallow up months of travel. The rundown of country-by-country highlights over the following pages will help you plan an itinerary – or remind you of how much you’ve yet to see.

Travel Pix Collection/AWL Images
WORCESTER AND BIRMINGHAM CANAL, BIRMINGHAM

FACT FILE
• Britain is a constitutional monarchy , whose head of state is Queen Elizabeth II. Parliament is composed of the directly elected House of Commons and the unelected House of Lords. The Prime Minister is the head of the largest political party represented in the House of Commons.
• The lowest point is in the Fens of eastern England, at 13ft below sea level; the highest mountain is Ben Nevis, in Scotland, at 4406ft. The longest river is the Severn (220 miles), which flows through England and Wales.
• The population of Britain is about 63 million: 55 million in England, 5 million in Scotland and 3 million in Wales. The biggest city is London, with over 8 million inhabitants.
• The distance between the two extreme points of the British mainland – a journey beloved of charity fundraisers – is the 874 miles, from Land’s End (Cornwall, England) to John O’Groats (in the Scottish Highlands).
• You can always plan a day out at the seaside – nowhere in Britain is more than 75 miles from the coast.
• Cary Grant, Stan Laurel, Robert Pattinson, Christian Bale and Guy Pearce? They’re all Brits – oh, and Gregory House, MD (Hugh Laurie) too. But London-girl Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger) and Mary Poppins’ Cockney chimney sweep Bert (Dick van Dyke)? Definitely not.
England
London is emphatically the place to start. Nowhere in the country can match the scope and innovation of the capital. It’s a colossal, dynamic city that is perhaps not as immediately pretty as some of its European counterparts, but does have Britain’s – arguably Europe’s – best spread of nightlife, cultural events, museums, pubs, galleries and restaurants.
The other large English cities – Birmingham, Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool – each have their strengths and admirers. Among much else, Birmingham has a resurgent arts scene, Leeds is the north’s prime shopping city, and Newcastle’s nightlife is legendary. Manchester can match the capital for glamour in terms of bars, clubbing and indie shopping, and also boasts two of the world’s best-known football teams, while its near-neighbour Liverpool is successfully reinventing itself as a top cultural destination.
History runs deepest in England’s oldest urban settlements. The glorious cathedral cities , like Lincoln, York, Salisbury, Durham and Winchester, form a beautiful national backbone of preserved churches, houses and buildings, while you’re never more than a few miles from a spectacular castle, a majestic country house, or a ruined monastery. There are world-famous, UNESCO-recognized sites galore, from Blenheim Palace to Canterbury Cathedral, but all English towns can rustle up an example of bygone glory, whether medieval chapel, Georgian mansion or Victorian mill. Meanwhile, reminders of more ancient times are ubiquitous – and reveal quite how central England has been to thousands of years of European development. In the southwest there are remnants of an indigenous Celtic culture that was all but eradicated elsewhere by the Romans, who in turn left their mark from Hadrian’s Wall in the north to Colchester in the south. Even more dramatic are the surviving traces of the very earliest prehistoric settlers – most famously the megalithic circles of Stonehenge and Avebury.

Getty Images
MICHELDEVER FOREST, WINCHESTER
For many visitors, it’s not the towns or monuments that are most beguiling, but the long-established villages of England, hundreds of which amount to nothing more than a pub, a shop, a gaggle of cottages and a farmhouse or two. Traditional rural life may well be on the wane – though that’s been said of England since the Industrial Revolution, over two hundred years ago – but in places like Devon, Cornwall, the Cotswolds, Cumbria and Yorkshire there are still villages, traditions and festivals that seem to spring straight from a Constable canvas or a Wordsworth poem. Indeed, the English countryside has been an extraordinarily fecund source of inspiration for writers and artists, and the English themselves have gone to great lengths to protect their natural heritage. Exmoor, Dartmoor, the North York Moors, the Lake District and the Peak District are the most dramatic of the country’s ten national parks , each offering a mix of picturesque villages, wild landscapes and wonderful walks.