Places to see/shop from Gatwick to Bristol

Hello! We are starting to play the, "This time next month, we will be on the cruise." game. :) I guess it's time to really finalize our plans!

For our pre-cruise land trip, we are flying into Gatwick and driving (yikes!) to Thornbury Castle (near Bristol). Does anybody have any suggestions of places to stop on the way?

For shopping, I am a MAJOR food person, and I want to go to at least one large grocery store and lots of other small speciality food shops. I also want to buy a teapot. :) Any suggestions for where to go for those things would also be much appreciated!

Your satnav (GPS) will undoubtedly send you via the M25 and the M4. The M25 can be very congested and the M4 is pretty boring. The problem is that alternative routes will take a lot longer. The motorway route should take around three hours, so it depends on what time you expect to leave, as to how much of a detour you could take.

If you set your satnav to avoid motorways/highways it will take you on a much more interesting and complicated route which will add up to two hours to the trip.

Is this your first trip to the UK, is there anything you particularly want to see and what are your time constraints? Are you picking up your ship in Bristol or coming back to Southampton?

If you are coming back to Southampton from Bristol then you could stop at Stonehenge and Salisbury on the way back. If not and you wanted to visit them on way to Bristol then it's quite possible but a long way round.

If you haven't been before I would suggest sticking to the most direct route on the motorways - M25/M4 but stopping at Windsor for a break which is just off the M4, very pretty town on the Thames with obvious attraction of castle.

For food shopping, all the main supermarkets have a good choice. Tesco and Sainsburys are very similar with a good range and good prices. More upmarket for foodies is Waitrose - bound to be one in Windsor - very good range of very nice things. As for independent food shops, well most towns do have one, particularly any of the tourist towns in the Cotswolds or upmarket places such as Windsor, Bath, Salisbury etc.

Enjoy your stay

Thank you both very much! I think we will do a combination of your suggestions. We sail out of Barcelona, but we are doing a pretty ambitious land trip before we sail.

I looked up Waitrose, and that is exactly what I was looking for, so thank you! I am seriously taking an empty suitcase just to fill with all of the food that I'm going to buy in all of the countries that we are visiting.