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Beatle Radio Beatlemania 50th Anniversary Tour
25 August - 2 September, 2012
8 days/8 nights
This tour begins in Manchester and finishes in London.
TENTATIVE ITINERARY
DAY 1 Saturday, 25 August, 2012
Arrival Manchester - your guide will meet you this afternoon to begin your touring adventure!
Manchester is perhaps the UK’s greatest rock secret. Where do we start with the music? Oasis, Graham Nash and The Hollies, Factory Records, The Smiths, The Hacienda and Happy Mondays, John Mayall, Joy Division, Buzzcocks, The Bee Gees, The Verve, Stone Roses, Elbow…there must be something in the water!
We’ll have a city tour of the local sites including music hot spots, album covers locations and lyric references. We’ll explore the heritage of Manchester, music sites and for any football/soccer fans on board, our time will include a photo op outside Manchester United’s stadium Old Trafford.
You’ll have the evening free to recover from your international journey and to explore as you wish. Manchester offers a vibrant night scene for live music and clubs. There’s also the rejuvenated docklands area, full of theatres, venues and museums.
NIGHTSTOP: Manchester
DAY 2 Sunday, 26 August, 2012
Liverpool – Beatle Week! Today is our first full day to explore Liverpool. To start things off, enjoy our very own ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ of Beatles sites including Penny Lane, Strawberry Field, Jacaranda, St George's Church, boyhood homes & hangouts, Liverpool Art College... Entrance into The Beatles Story Museum will be included.
The rest of the day is free for you to do as you decide. One option is joining the National Trust inside tour to John and Paul’s boyhood homes at Mendips & Forthlin Rd (WE – SU only.) The homes are not opened to the general public, just via this special tour. Please note that availability is limited on this side tour, so tickets are available on a first come/first served basis only (side tour at a supplemental fee.)
This is Liverpool’s International Beatles Week and the Mathew Street Festival so there will be no shortage of live bands, memorabilia auctions and special Beatle events. You never know who you may meet at Beatles week! Even if we don’t have a chance to meet one of the famous friends of the Fab Four, we will most certainly be rubbing shoulders with many locals with a tale or two to tell about the lads in the early days!
NIGHTSTOP: Hard Days Night Hotel, Liverpool (subject to availability)
DAY 3 Monday, 27 August, 2012
Liverpool – Beatle Week! We have the full day to enjoy the events of the Festival in Liverpool. As we’re staying centrally, we are just around the corner to the Cavern Club and Mathew Street, right in the heart of the action!
Optional North Wales day trip to Snowdonia National Park & Bron Yr Aur. For those that wish a nice day out in the countryside, your guide will be offering this optional side trip. This is a stunning corner of the UK, featuring the highest peak in England and Wales; experience narrow mountain passes, flowing streams, cascading waterfalls, sheep-covered uplands and verdant, hidden valleys. It was in this paradise retreat that Robert Plant and Jimmy Page were inspired to pen much of Led Zeppelin III while staying at the rustic Bron Yr Aur cottage.
No matter your choice of activity during the day, tonight is dedicated to enjoying the live music of the Festival.
NIGHTSTOP: Hard Days Night Hotel, Liverpool (subject to availability)
DAY 4 Tuesday, 28 August, 2012
Liverpool – Beatle Week! Today is the final day of the Festival and sure to be a blast! We have the whole day and evening in Liverpool to enjoy the local attractions and events on Mathew Street and in the Cavern.
During your day, perhaps you’ll choose an optional ‘ferry ‘cross the Mersey’?
There’s the Albert Dock area to consider too. This is an attraction in itself, boasting many memorabilia shops, great cafes & restaurants, a Tate gallery, Liverpool Life Museum, where you can see some of Stuart Sutcliffe’s paintings, and the moving Maritime Museum, with its permanent displays on the slave trade and The Titanic. Nearby is the huge shopping complex Liverpool One. All of this in addition to the special events of the Festival!
NIGHTSTOP: Hard Days Night Hotel, Liverpool (subject to availability)
DAY 5 Wednesday, 29 August, 2012
This morning, we hit the road, making our way to Roman Chester. Here is the largest stone amphitheatre in Britain and the famed black and white medieval shopping ‘rows.’
We’ll travel through some lovely Borders scenery into Wales, ‘The Land of Song.’ We’ll have a brief glimpse of what this wonderful destination has to offer! We’ll sample a few of Wales’ musical connections too. In addition to the traditional Male Voice Choirs, there are opera divas Katherine Jenkins & Charlotte Church, icons Tom Jones & Shirley Bassey plus Manic Street Preachers, Super Furry Animals, Stereophonics and Duffy amongst the Welsh artists. http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/music/sites/content/pages/a-z.shtml
Wales is home to more castles than any other European country so we just have to visit one! Raglan Castle was built in the 13th century, considered a fine late medieval fortress. Since the ruin was used in Robert Plant’s sequences in ‘The Song Remains the Same,’ we have a great excuse for visiting – not that we really need one!
Countless musicians have recorded in this Wye Valley countryside over the past 40 years, including Julian Lennon, Robert Plant, Oasis, Annie Lennox, Queen…Subject to availability, we’ll stay the night in the first residential recording studio, Rockfield Studios.
NIGHTSTOP: Monmouth area, Wye Valley, Wales
DAY 6 Thursday, 30 August, 2012
Classic icons Bath and Stonehenge are on our agenda today.
Bath, the city of Georgian splendor and Roman antiquity, is another port of call this afternoon. Your guide will be on hand for an orientation walking tour and entrance to the famed Roman Baths and Pump Rooms is included. There will be some free time for you to explore as you wish too. Literary fans may enjoy time in the Jane Austen Centre or you could simply wander the lovely tea rooms, cafes and antique shops.
Our pre-historic British ancestors left behind some of the most enigmatic and mysterious monuments to be found anywhere in the world. What was the great Stonehenge designed for? Is it a temple? A market place? A calendar? Or maybe a signal to outer space visitors? This is no Spinal Tap, this is the real thing and you can decide it’s meaning for yourself.
Next, to our nightstop in the scenic Thames Valley and the pretty riverside village of Henley, a quintessential British village famed for its annual Regatta, where George Harrison made his home and where Dusty Springfield was laid to rest.
NIGHTSTOP: Henley-on-Thames/Reading area
DAY 7 Friday, 31 August, 2012
Today, enjoy discovering Beatles London and the Thames Valley on our very own ‘Long and Winding Road’ Beatle day!
The Thames Valley is where the Beatles filmed ‘Help!’ and ‘A Hard Days Night.’ We’ll also see some places of interest for The Stones, The Who and others but we’re on the trail of The Beatles!
On this day tour you follow the Beatles history in London, from the first hotels they stayed to Macca’s current offices and home. Of course we’ll be passing some of the famous landmarks of the Capitol, but our experience is focused on parts of London not on the usual tourist route.
See the studio where the St Pepper's album cover was shot, Apple Office and boutique, Ringo’s Montagu Square flat, where the 'Mop Tops' the played their last ever live gig, where Brian Epstein lived and died...A high point of the day will be taking a walk across the famed Abbey Road crossing!
People ask us -
- Do we walk across the Abbey Road crosswalk? YES!
- Do we see any Beatles houses? YES!
- Do we see where the final rooftop concert took place? YES!
- Can we recreate any Beatle film scenes? YES!
- Can we see where the ‘Rain/Paperback Writer’ film was shot? YES!
- Do we see the famous four doors from ‘Help’? YES!
- Do we see where John met Yoko, and Paul met Linda? YES!
- Do we see where Brian Epstein lived and died? YES!
- Do we see the Apple Corp. buildings? YES!
- Do we have time to stop and take photos? YES!
- Do we see more on this tour than on any other ‘Beatles in London’ tour? YES! YES! YES!
This evening, enjoy a group dinner at THE ORIGINAL Hard Rock Café, London. This is the one that started it all back in 1971. See The Beatles’ early suits, Jimi’s guitar and much more.
We’ll enjoy a private tour of the newly revamped Café Vault, a museum boasting a treasure trove of musical memorabilia – costumes, instruments, lyric sheets…! To mark the occasion, maybe have an official photograph taken of you ‘playing’ one of the famous guitars in the collection (photo available for a supplemental fee.)
NIGHTSTOP: London – subject to availability, our hotel is THE very location where The Beatles first stayed when they came to London from Liverpool!
DAY 8 Saturday, 1 Sept, 2012
Today is your choice – join the optional half day tour to Pink Floyd’s Cambridge this morning or spend the whole day in London independently.
Cambridge is a classical place to visit and a guided tour of the historic city and university is on most people’s ‘must-see’ list. Syd Barrett, Roger Waters and David Gilmour were raised in Cambridge so we have the opportunity to get an insight into their musical inspirations. In addition to the university, we’ll see some childhood homes of the lads, early gigs sites, Granchester Meadows and Syd’s last home.
We will return to London mid-afternoon so there’s time for some independent sightseeing. This city has no shortage of amazing classical icons – see St Paulﾒs Cathedral, The Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and Houses of Parliament to name a few. There’s the reconstructed Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, the sites of ancient Bankside and world class museums. Another option is Handel House Museum. Maybe add optional ‘Big Bus’ tickets with river cruise to your package, a fun way around the main attractions. The choice is yours! (Tickets/other tours available at a supplemental fee.)
If you’ve been to London before, there’s the new British Music Experience at the O2 to consider too - http://www.britishmusicexperience.com/venue/
Tonight, a farewell ‘beggars banquet’ together at Bill Wyman’s restaurant Sticky Fingers.
NIGHTSTOP: London
DAY 9 Sunday, 2 Sept, 2012
Alas, today we are ‘homeward bound’ – unless you wish to extend your stay in the Capital?
Please Note: All attraction opening times are correct at time of printing this website. While we do our utmost to include all properties, we reserve the right to change an attraction should it become impossible to visit due to change in opening times, days.
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