Outdoors & Nature

Ideal for a sunny day. And for a cold rainy day: "There's no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing".

Marylebone: the Chilterns by train

The smallest terminus and the quickest way into open country: beechwoods and red kites in forty minutes.

Day trips by trainCountryside

The stone base of a monument on a hilltop at dusk, with a gravel path and a wide view over the Vale of Aylesbury under dark clouds breaking to the west. — Coombe Hill above Wendover, the highest point of the Chilterns. Photo by Simon Burchell, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The spire of the University Church of St Mary in Oxford lit at dusk, with a gas lamp on the wall of All Souls to the left and bicycles against the railings. — Oxford, Radcliffe Square. Photo by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A timber-framed house with leaded windows, two gables and a low wooden door, behind iron railings on a pavement, under a blue sky with white clouds. — Shakespeare's Birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon. Two hours. Photo by Acediscovery, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Chiltern line reaches the hills in less than an hour: Great Missenden, Wendover and Princes Risborough for walks on the escarpment and the Ridgeway, with red kites overhead the whole way and the beechwoods at their best in May and October, then Bicester and Oxford at the far end, and Stratford-upon-Avon in two hours. The station itself is a small Edwardian one, with the Landmark hotel across the road and a quiet none of the other termini can manage; you will be in a field before some of them have found you a seat.

Where: Melcombe Place, NW1 6JJ

Google Maps chilterns.org.uk

Trains from early morning until after midnight

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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.