robin1234

Remember you are comparing two different things, US domestic news and weather and BBC world service news and weather. Watching domestic TV in the UK, you'd see national (not worldwide) weather, followed by weather for your region. Same with the news, not the same news as you see on BBC in America. I agree though, TV news is pretty poor over here. (So I've heard, I don't have a TV!)

Exeter, Brighton and Windsor are three totally different types of towns so there is nothing to say about them collectively! I like seaside towns, problem with Brighton is, it's too big and too close to London. Exeter is somewhat typical of small cathedral cities. It was so badly bombed in the Second World War it is not the most interesting historically, but still a beautiful city.

christmasoompa

I wouldn't bother with Exeter personally, it's not a particularly attractive place although I guess you could stop off on your way to Lands End if you wanted. We have a house in Cornwall so stop off in Exeter quite a lot, but it's not somewhere I'd choose to visit.

Brighton lots of people love but it's not my cup of tea, Windsor though I think is well worth a visit. Even if you decide against visiting the castle, an amble through the Great Park and along the Thames is great.

HTH.

Sally Redux

I like Brighton, it's great fun if you like shopping for vintage/quirky things, the sea front is nice and the Pavilion is really interesting.

Englishmum

Just south of Exeter is the lovely town of Dartmouth (yes, there's one in New England too ). I think it would be a much nicer place to visit.

We are going to England in early August and staying in a holiday cottage just 3 miles from Dartmouth; there are lots of pretty coastal towns and villages in the vicinity as well as Dartmoor:

Discover Dartmouth is the Official award winning Tourist Information Website - Dartmouth

Visit South Devon - Holidays - South Devon - Things to do - What’s On and Visit Devon - The official Devon tourist board site

The official tourism website for Dartmoor

We're staying here in a large cottage: Luxury Self Catering Holiday Cottages in Dartmouth | Hillfield Village Holiday Homes in Salcombe, Dartmouth & South Devon, Self Catering Property Lets | Coast & Country Cottages

You might also like to visit some of the lovely Shropshire towns and villages on the Welsh border and if you like history there is so much to see in the area.....the Industrial Revolution began in the local area and there are some wonderful museums to explore:

Ludlow, Shropshire - Information for visitors and locals: where to stay, where to eat, accommodation, things to do, events, businesses......

Home - Ironbridge Gorge Museum

feelbritish

Windsor is also a nice place to visit. We have a house in Marlow, which is a market town on the Thames River between Henley-on-Thames and Windsor and a nice place to base yourself to visit that area. Chiltern Hills around there have some lovely villages (if you watched Vicar of Dibley was filmed in Hambledon village) and it is also close to the Cotswolds for day trips not to mention a day trip to Oxford where they have a good "Park and Ride" as it is impossible to get parking right in Oxford. Windsor Castle is lovely and well worth a visit. Much smaller than you would expect. If you base yourself somewhere there you can be in London in 55 minutes should you wish to go to the capital!

Too many choices

LoveFortheUK

Thank you everybody for all of your suggestions.
I am really looking forward to coming to the UK.

Yes feelbritish, there are too many choices and not enough time to see everything in a few months.
(I have watched Vicar of Dibley several times. Love that show as well as many other British shows or shows with a British cast: Game Of Thrones, Orphan Black, The Tudors, Doctor Who, Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, Merlin, Ripper Street, The Fades and of course classics like Benny Hill and Are You Being Served. Let's face it. BRITISH TV IS BETTER THAN US TV)


Oh no now I've done it. I've criticized American television. I guess that makes me anti-American yeah?

christmasoompa

Heck, everybody that's seen US television would criticise it, don't worry about it! My particular bugbear is the constant commercial breaks. Coming from the UK where we have the BBC with no commercial breaks, or at worst three an hour on other channels that drives me insane!

Anyway, I was going to suggest that if you haven't already you read Bill Bryson 'Notes from a Small Country'. I love Bill Bryson and he seems to manage to sum up a country very well. I think you'd enjoy it, it's tales of his travels around the UK.

He's also written a couple of books on the US (he's a dual citizen, married to a Brit) which are well worth a read.

HTH.

robin1234

Actually Notes from a Small Island. Definitely agree, brilliant book, profiles some interesting places that visitors (and British people) might not otherwise visit.

Gozit

TV is (mostly) commercial free in the UK ?
Didn't know that one...

feelbritish

That is why you pay a tv licence! One of the many things we are looking forward to when we return. I think we would be crazy here without our pvr so we can scroll through the ads. I think that people here are so used to it and think it is totally normal to have more ads than tv programs

bigglesworth

Sorry, only the BBC is commercial free - and even it devotes nearly as much time to advertising its own programmes on TV or Radio or Internet as the other channels devote to paid advertisements.
And just about everyone complains how absolutely rubbish TV in the UK is nowadays.
An endless cycle of soap operas, reality shows, talent contests, property programmes, cookery and gardening. Repeated and repeated and repeated.

Gozit

Agreed... I won't watch the telly here in Canada because of the damn ads! I'd much rather pay a license to do without them. Especially with the gouging that the companies here in Canada do for TV service. The basic is like $50 a month !



TV is the same here in Canada, just with ads and it costs a lot more!

bigglesworth

The license fee in the UK is 150 odd quid a year, which for some bizarre reason is all given to the BBC. I think that is close to 300 Canadian dollars.
eBritain does have Freeview, which is a free digital service, but it mainly shows repeats. Many people subscribe to SKy which is 40 or 50 quid a month. On top of the license fee. Which the BBC are trying to impose on catch up channels, and all online content too
The problem is the spend is spread so much wider now. The BBC now have four or five TV channels, six radio Channels, BBC World and its internet business. And their biggest spend is on securing broadcasting rights to obscure sporting events that nobody would watch otherwise - like Wimbledon, the Olympics, football, etc.
End result is increasingly they do lots of different things, but few of them particularly well any more.

Sally Redux

Looks like the world's most fantastic bargain when you have lived in the US.

rebeccajo

Seriously.

We pay about 40 USD per month for basic cable. That gets you the 3 main networks plus FOX (jeebus), a load of shopping channels, and a couple of Jesus channels. The only saving grace is PBS and I swear to you, we only light up the big box for it.