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Kent: The Invaders Gateway to England Mini-Tour - Three days / Two nights Sunday - Tuesday In this, England’s oldest county, we offer a tour of unsurpassed variety. Those wanting to experience the full breadth of over 2000 years of English history will feel satiated after seeing mighty Norman castles (Dover and Rochester), the site of the famed battle of 1066, Roman remains, Napoleonic Forts and Battle of Britain memorials. Stately home and garden lovers will ‘ooh and aah’ over Churchill’s Chartwell, Vita Sackville West’s Sissinghurst and Leeds Castle. Literary buffs will enjoy viewing sites connected with Dickens, Virginia Wolf, Kipling, Henry James and AA Milne. For Maritime enthusiasts we include the Cinque Ports and ancient Thames side Docks. And last but not least, for those seeking timeless villages, medieaval towns, traditional pubs and real English ‘culture’, there’s no finer place to find it than Kent, ‘The Garden of England’. Welcome to a region almost impossibly rich in treasures! You can link this tour with the Red Dragon tour of South Wales or the Heart of England tour should you wish a longer adventure! We offer another mini-tour of this region concentrating on its fabulous and world-famous homes and gardens such as Sissinghurst, Hever and Great Dixter - Stately Homes & Beautiful Gardens.
2009 dates: every Sunday, from 19 April through 11 October. Winter dates available on request, subject to availability.
This GUARANTEED DEPARTURE begins SUNDAYS as above from central London hotels below. It is your responsibility to be there in plenty of time. Chiswick Hotel, Chiswick 07.45 (underground Turnham Green) It is important to please ring the Back-Roads’ London office at least 24 hours prior to your tour to re-confirm your pick up point/time! Cost: $759 USD per adult sharing a twin/double room; $879 USD single occupancy. $459 USD child sharing room. What your tour price includes: Your accommodation for 2 nights while on the tour including both full breakfasts and dinners. Your price also includes all entrance fees to attractions, transportation, services of driver/guide-companion and all taxes and tips other than those you may wish to give your guide. Airport transfers and accommodation pre and post tour is not included but can be reserved at a specially discounted price. Our London tour base is the Chiswick Hotel so you will be picked-up for your tour here as above if booking pre-tour accommodation with us. Want to upgrade your tour package to include international airfare? Click here for info.
TENTATIVE ITINERARY Day One We leave London, following the Thames towards the North Sea. Our morning sightseeing features a range of fantastic sites, many evoking London's maritime past including Greenwich Meridian Line, and a Thames riverside location with connections to Captain Christopher Jones and 'The Mayflower'. There’ll be an opportunity of seeing the Pocahontas memorial at Gravesend (fitting in this Jamestown anniversary year), and then for lunch the tiny but jewel-like city of Rochester. Rochester is an undiscovered pearl and deservedly on a Back-Roads Touring Co. Ltd itinerary taking you behind the tourist facade. There's an exquisite cathedral, a well-preserved 12th century castle and a medieval shopping street. It also boasts connections with Charles Dickens who lived here and set many of his tales in the city. This afternoon we'll take the first of our tours through this country dubbed 'the garden of England' to Chartwell, home to Winston Churchill. Here you can almost still smell the great man's cigar smoke as we tour the house to discover his life and times. NIGHTSTOP: Kent Day TWO The mighty Canterbury Cathedral, the pretty Leeds Castle and historic Dover are the main features of our day's touring. All are major icons and, being essential must-sees for the visitor to the UK, are often visited as a day tour from London. As we're based in the area, we'll be enjoying a much more leisurely day than the day-trippers will be having! And, in typical Back-Roads style, we'll be able to add one or two other attractions. Depending on group interests and weather there'll be choices from the fishing village of Whitstable, Britain's most haunted village of Pluckley an emotive Battle of Britain memorial and a few real back-road drives where you'll see hop fields and the traditional oast houses of the region. Our Jamestown commemoration theme is explored at Leeds Castle, (connections with Virginia developers the Culpeppers and Faifaxes) and at nearby Maidstone where we’ll find a Washington Memorial and the origins of the ‘Stars and Stripes’. NIGHTSTOP: Kent
Day THREE We'll begin another memorable day's touring with a visit to the fabulous gardens of Sissinghurst. Next we cross the Romney marshes, once a haunt of smugglers, to the old cinque port of Rye. This picturesque town, so loved by the novelist Henry James, always has our tour participants cooing with delight and expending much film! Along the coast you'll see coastal fortresses built to repel the invader, though this time Napoleon. Then to a place all have heard of, Hastings! We'll explore the site of this most famous of battles. 1066 changed the course of the history of the English-speaking peoples and it is a spine-tingling exercise to walk part of the actual battlefield. On our way back towards London we'll see Winnie the Pooh's Ashdown Forest and may even stop for a game of Pooh Sticks! If Pooh holds no attraction then perhaps Rudyard Kipling’s house may? As ever, a back-Roads Touring Co. Ltd tour is sufficiently flexible to be able to make changes to accommodate your travel dreams. Add to these attractions more scenic touring through 'the garden of England' and a few 'serendipity stops' and you have a perfect day! We'll arrive back into London by 6 pm. London accommodation is not included in your tour rate but is available for a supplemental fee.
This tour is designed to link with the following tours should you choose a longer holiday break: weekly departures Red Dragon tour of South Wales; weekly departures of Heart of England visiting Oxford and the Cotswolds; select departures of Eastern England, Mini-Harry Potter and the Kingdom of Wessex.
This tour is operated by Back-Roads Touring Co Ltd |
