Explorer Days
London is our main course, but we also serve up wonderful side dishes in the shape of Explorer Days to Oxford, Salisbury & Stonehenge, Bath, Canterbury, The Cotswolds, Hampton Court Palace, the Dickens Christmas Festival, St. Albans, Windsor Castle and Eton; and so on. An Explorer Day is an interesting, fun, and inexpensive way to get the most out of your visit to Oxford, Hampton Court, etc. After all, if you've only got a few hours in a place, why spend half your time wandering around trying to get your bearings? Explorer Days consist of two different walks - one in the morning and one in the afternoon - with a lunch break in between. Afterwards there's time for shopping or a museum or exhibition visit. We travel by comfortable, high speed train. Meet your guide at the designated central London British Rail station ticket office. The ride through the lovely old English countryside takes an hour or so. We head back to London late afternoon, i.e., in time for you to go to a show or do an evening walk. The charge for
an Explorer Day is £10 (£8.50 for concessions) plus rail
fare and any entrance fees. Your guide will organise the train ticket
and get you a discount on a Cheap Day Return ticket. Train fares plus
adult entrance fees are: Bath £28; Canterbury £16.50;
The Charles Dickens Christmas Festival £12.50; The London Explorer
Day £14; Oxford & The Cotswolds £20; Hampton
Court Palace £9.50 (£7.50 for students & senior citizens);
St. Albans £6.50; Stonehenge & Salisbury £29; Windsor
Castle & Eton £16. There are further reductions for
senior citizens and students. Brit Rail Pass holders of course travel
for free.
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Bath is like being in heaven without going to all the bother and expense of dying. A scoop of pure honey set in a green bowl, Bath is, quite simply, "the world's most perfect Georgian city". In short, Bath is England at its best, which is saying a great deal. A graceful and airy miracle of Palladian grandeur, it's a world of arcades and crescents, of Assembly Rooms and Pump Rooms. Exploring this exquisite place and its stunningly cosmopolitan Roman foundations, folded into a time-warp in the lovely Somerset hills, is more than a tour. It's an event. European cities just don't come any more provocative. Or profound. Or poetic. The Bath Explorer takes place on November 11, December 27th, January 3rd, January 20th, and March 10th. To go on the Bath Explorer day meet Richard or Gillian or Chris or Hilary by the main ticket office of Paddington Railway Station at 8:45am on Nov. 11 or Dec. 27 or Jan. 3 or Jan. 20 or March 10. Return to top
Like Chaucer's pilgrims to Caunterbury we wende. And what tales Canterbury has to tell. Tales writ in the ancient cathedral towering moodily over the nearby pubs and shops. Tales gleaned from half-timbered, white-washed little houses lining narrow streets. Tales borne by the river Stour swabbling past brilliant flowerbeds and under arching stone bridges. In short, in Canterbury we enter another world...we step into medieval history. To crown it all we can attend choral Evensong in the Cathedral - or visit the Canterbury Tales Exhibition. The Canterbury Explorer Day takes place on December 23rd, February 3rd, and March 3rd. To go on the Canterbury Explorer Day meet your guide, Richard by the ticket office of Victoria Railway Station at 09:00am. Return to top CHARLES DICKENS CHRISTMAS FESTIVAL What could be
jollier? It's 1827 and the streets are thronged with hundreds of costumed
characters. Everywhere you look there are top hats and frock coats
and bonnets and hooped skirts. Yes, it's Christmastime in Charles
Dickens's old hometown. And we're joining in...enjoying the best Dickens
Christmas Festival in the world. And there's guaranteed snow! Return to top This one's a tour de force - Eternal London in a day! Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, the Changing of the Guard, Admiralty Arch, Trafalgar Square, a lunch break, the Banqueting House, the Changing of the Horse Guards, No. 10 Downing Street, old Scotland Yard, the boat ride down the Thames past St. Paul's Cathedral, the Tate Modern, and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre to Tower Bridge and a tour in the Tower of London. Wow! The London Explorer Day takes place every Wednesday and every Friday. Meet your guide, Tom or Brian or Helena, on the pavement just outside exit 4 of Westminster Underground Station at 10:00am. Return to top
If you're thinking about going on this one you're on the edge of perfection. Don't turn your back on it. On chuckling streams, stone bridges, and thatched cottages; on ancient churches and manor houses; on old mills and millponds; on vast panoramas, rolling hills and deep green valleys; on villages out of a storybook. On mediaeval colleges, walls, bridges, libraries and gardens; on cloisters and quads, towers and dreaming spires, gnawed by time and echoing with centuries of youthful exuberance. And this is the best time of the year to go - no tourists, the colleges in session, and the Cotswolds as green as green can be! Oxford & The Cotswolds Explorer Days run every Thursday at 10:00am (and on Saturday, November 18th; and on Saturday, February 17th. Meet your guide, Richard, by the main ticket office of Paddington Railway Station at 10:00am.. Return to top In Hampton Court "dead kings and queens walk again and dead lips ask, 'what of the isles of England and her sea?' till whispers fill the tower of memory" It casts its spell even before we get to it. From the bridge we'll catch our first thrilling glimpse of the Great Hall towering over Wolsey's courts and surrounded by a forest of twisted chimneys. With that glimpse the centuries begin to melt away. Welcome to Hampton Court! Welcome to our best loved national monument: "it typifies the grand alliance of history and architecture more than any building in England." Welcome to the climax of the English mediaeval tradition. Welcome to the last fanfare of castle, keep, and great hall - the setting for the saga of Wolsey, Henry VIII and his six wives. Welcome to Henry VIII's Real Tennis Courts and the Maze and the Haunted Gallery and the State Rooms and Private Apartments. And that's not to mention the company we'll encounter - all of them in period costume. And by the way, they all know Richard well...so, my lords and ladies, you'll be accorded VIP! treatment. This Explorer Day takes place on Saturday, Nov. 25; on Saturday, Dec. 30; on Saturday, Jan. 27; and on Saturday, Feb. 24th. To go on it, meet your guide, Richard , by the main ticket office of Waterloo Railway Station at 10:15am. N.B. on December 30th the Hampton Court Explorer Day will be particularly memorable because they'll be staging special Tudor Christmas Festivities!
N.B. You'll save money if you get a Six Zone Travel Card at the start of your journey. Return to top
The most fascinating small city in England is just 20 minutes from London. St. Albans is England in miniature, an essence of England. Here you see it all - from the Legions of Julius Caesar to the dynasty of the Churchill's. These streets are corridors in the vale of time. Here England's only Roman theatre; there a market that dates back to the Saxons; round this corner a 600-year-old Moot hall; round that one a clutch of mediaeval and Tudor coaching inns; hard by, a rare curfew clock tower; up these lanes a sprinkling of half-timbered Elizabethan houses; over there, streets and buildings that are essays in Georgian England; here, a Victorian prison. Let alone all sorts of hidden, curious places and things -- and a skein of enthralling history. Not to put too fine a point on it, St. Albans is London's best kept secret! St. Albans Explorer Days take place on November 4th, December 16th, January 13th, February 10th, and March 17th. Meet your guide, Hilary or Jean, at 09:45am on the pavement just outside the exit of Farringdon Underground Station. Return to top
"You'll
never see anything like it again..." This Explorer Day runs every Tuesday at 10:15am. It will also take place on Saturday, December 9th; Friday, December 29th; and Saturday, January 6th. Meet Richard by the ticket office of Waterloo Railway Station at 10:15am. Return to top
"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas any more." First things first . You come to England you have to see Windsor. It's Camelot on the Thames. It's the largest and oldest continuously inhabited castle in the world. It's a Mediaeval town. It's Georgian streets. It's swards of green. And just over the silvery Thames there's Eton College, on whose playing fields the Battle of Waterloo was won. Founded 50 years before Columbus discovered America, Eton today is educating the future King of England and his brother Prince Harry. The Windsor Castle & Eton College Explorer Day takes place every Monday (except December 18th, December 25th, and January 1st. Meet your guide, Chris or Gillian, by the main ticket office of Waterloo Railway Station at 9:45am. Return to top
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