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Tour Dates: Your choice! Any day of the week.
Available at any date for private groups of 2 – 15 people, subject to availability. Rates are based upon vehicle and guide hire per day; groups of 7 - 15 would have a per person rate same/similar to one of our scheduled tours of the same length.
Price: dependent upon how many are in your party; please contact us for a quote. Contact us for availability and rate quote: specialgrouptours@yahoo.com
Please note, this is a suggested itinerary. It may be revised to suit your individual group needs.
TENTATIVE ITINERARY
DAY ONE
We depart London and take a scenic route to Hampshire, “Jane Austen Country”, with a stop in Steventon, where Jane Austen spent her first 25 years. Next, her home at Chawton is our destination, now open as a museum. It was in this quaint village that Jane spent the last eight years of her life, wrote and completed most of her most famous works, Sense & Sensibility and Pride & Prejudice amongst others. Once inside the house, we are in her world.
Our next port of call is the ancient Saxon capital of Winchester. We will begin with a guided walk around the city; sights include the cathedral, where Jane Austen is buried, one of England's most famous public schools and the legendary 'King Arthur's Round Table'. If there is time, we may also visit the last monastery in England where pilgrims may still claim the 'dole'.
NIGHTSTOP: Hampshire
DAY TWO
Today, we have another author to enjoy, this is a region well known to Thomas Hardy. Wiltshire & Dorset touring to Lyme Regis is today’s agenda, far from the madding crowd. The counties of Hampshire, Wiltshire and most especially Dorsetshire, are ones where time literally seems to have stood still since the days of Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy. We'll be traveling through small villages and towns used by both as settings for stories. We can include visits in “Hardy’s World” such as his cottage and Dorchester church, as you wish.
Jane Austen's Lyme Regis is the highlight of our day! We'll spend time exploring part of Britain's 'Jurassic Park' and perhaps find a fossil or two along the shoreline near Lyme Regis, which was a popular sea spa town and the site of many Austen family holidays. The town of Lyme Regis looks much as it did when Jane spent time here, and sites from Persuasion are recognizable.
NIGHTSTOP: Hampshire
DAY THREE - Tuesday
Today, across the amazing Salisbury Plain where we’ll pass by the great prehistoric temple of Stonehenge, a setting for Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and a landscape simply littered with ancient burial sites.
Bath, the city of Georgian splendor and Roman antiquity, is our main destination today. Your guide will be on hand for a walking tour of Jane Austen’s city. This place was enjoyed by the social set of the 18th and 19th centuries, a setting for Jane Austen amongst many other writers; Austen fans will immediately recognize many streets and squares from her novels such as Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. You can also see homes where the author herself lived.
You will have free time to explore Bath as you please. Visit the Roman Baths and Pump Rooms, the Jane Austen Centre, or wander the lovely tea and antique shops - the choice is yours!
If we’ve time, we will visit the medieval village of Lacock which has hardly changed in the past 200 years. With its magnificent abbey, half timbered cottages and greystone houses it provides a perfect setting. This lovely place, where TV ariels, telephone wires and advertising are banned, has been used as a film set for many popular films such as the Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle production of “Pride and Prejudice” and "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". Fittingly, the local abbey was where George Fox Talbot pioneered photography.
NIGHTSTOP: London (own account, not included in tour price. Accommodation is available for a supplemental fee.)
Please note: All attraction opening dates/times are correct at time of printing this website.
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