This stimulating and unusual tour focuses on England and Wales, which inspired the works of some of the English language's greatest exponents. We visit their homes, track down locations readily recognisable in their works and generally obtain a flavour of the times in which they were writing. We also visit the amazing book town of Hay-on-Wye.
Splendid scenery, stupendous historical sites, a feast of culture and the opportunity for some marvellous speciality shopping make this a simply lovely holiday.

Literary enthusiasts might also enjoy our Irish Literary tour, our Scotland Literary Festival trip, and our Poets and Writers of Nothern England tour. You'll find all of these itineraries on this web site.

Tour Code

Arrive London

Depart London

LIT

Sunday

Friday

LIT 01

10 Jul

22 Jul

Price:   GBP £1529    Single Supplement:  GBP £225

Click here to work out prices in other currencies http://www.xe.com/ucc/

This tour is available at any time of the year for private groups.

TENTATIVE ITINERARY

You'll be met at the airport of arrival by your Back-Roads Transfer Driver and be delivered to our West London Hotel. The remainder of the day is yours to recover from the rigours of your flight. The hotel is situated in an attractive neighbourhood of the city so you may enjoy local exploration, or join one of Back-Roads city tours (optional) or take the underground to a city centre area. Dinner is not included tonight.

We leave London, following in the footsteps of Chaucer's pilgrims. Before taking leave of the city, we'll visit the historic and literary significant, Southwark neighbourhood. Here you'll visit Shakespeare's re-created Globe Theatre, see ancient coaching inns that featured in Dickens's works, and see the actual site of Chaucer's Tabart.

Our next destination is the small city of Rochester. It was here that Dickens lived out his last day, writing and using locations in the city as settings. This is a remarkably pretty city with a 13th century castle and lovely cathedral.

Our day in the counties of Kent, the 'garden of England', and East Sussex is full of literary potential. There are so many sites here that it may prove difficult to choose! But we will, taking account of tour participants interests. There's Kipling's Batemans, the 'Winnie the Pooh' woods of AA Milne, houses connected with Henry James and Virginia Woolf, Churchill's country home of Chartwell, Charles Darwin's Downe House and Groombridge Place with its Arthur Conan Doyle connections (renamed 'Birlstone Manor in 'The Valley of Fear') and collection.

We may continue with our Conan Doyle theme if there's a particular interest, with a visit to his grave site in the pretty All Saints Church at Minsted. What will certainly be included today are the somewhat gentler sites of Jane Austen's house at Chawton and the nearby Gilbert White house (his mid 1700s 'Antiquities of Selbourne' was basically the first modern book on nature). We'll also try to see Winchester and Austen's memorial in the cathedral.

The counties of Hampshire, Wiltshire and most especially Dorsetshire, are ones where time literally seems to have stood still since the days of local writes Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy. We'll be travelling through small villages and towns used by both as settings for stories.

We'll also be visiting Hardy's own home and that of Lawrence of Arabia (T E Lawrence) before we continue on our touring towards our accommodation base on the wild Dartmoor!

Two Bridges,
Dartmoor

This is a day where writes of great mystery and crime stories have their day! Daphne Du Maurier at Fowey, Agatha Christie at the seaside resort Torquay and Conan Doyle's moors (with a visit to the High Moorland visitor centre at Princetown) are on our agenda. If we've time, we'll also see the setting that inspired 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' at Buchfastleigh.

This is a lovely day, exploring Devon's literary connections and naturally having time for a clotted cream tea!

'A tale of two cities' might be an apt way to describe today. The Georgian splendour and Roman antiquity of Bath is first on our touring agenda following a drive through rural Somerset. This was a city enjoyed by the social set of the 18th and 19th centuries, a setting for Jane Austen, Sheridan ('The Rivals') and loved by Dr Johnson amongst many, many others. Thence to the merchant adventurers port city of Bristol. It was here that Robert Louis Stevenson first clapped eyes on "long John Silver'. We'll visits Clifton Downs and the amazing Clifton gorge and stop before leaving the city and crossing to Wales.

Dylan Thomas is undoubtedly the wrier most associated with Wales and we're dedicating a whole day to visiting his beloved Wales. You'll follow the Dylan trail through Swansea, visiting the Dylan Thomas centre Swansea, then continue on to Laugharn, where he lived beside the sea, worked in a small wooden boat house and was eventually buried.

This was his inspiration for 'Under Milkwood' and it retains its rather special charm.

If you're not a Dylan Thomas fan before you come, you will be after today!

Of course, Thomas was but one in a long line of literary greats that this proud Celtic nation has produced. Many have written in the Welsh language but other great writers in English have been .
Richard Llewellyn (who authored 'How Green was my Valley'), Roald Dalh, who lived in Cardiff, Bruce Chetwin, and most recently, Harry Potter creator , J K Rowling who hails from the border town of Chepstow.

We'll see sites connected with most (and some breath taking scenery along the Wye Valley) and also investigate some rather older Welsh literature amidst the Roman ruins of Caerleon. It is not always known that Merlin the Magician did exist, and was Welsh, and that this region has strong claims to King Arthur and his legendary knights of the Round Table.

This afternoon is the time when book lovers satisfy their wildest dreams! We spend in the used book capital of the world, Hay-on-Wye. Here almost every second shop is a bookstore - and so is the castle and so is the old local cinema! Books, books, books. Everything and anything from the rare antiquarian to the obscure print. From ancient newsprint to long forgotten magazines.

There'll perhaps be a little more time in Hay before we leave and cross the border to England. A morning's pleasant touring though the honey-coloured villages of the Cotswolds brings us Stratford upon Avon.

Here' there'll be time to explore the main Shakespearean sites such at the birthplace, Ann Hathaway's cottage, and in our humble view, the infinitely more interesting home of his mother, Mary Arden.

Leaving Stratford, we continue south to Oxford with a stop at Winston Churchill's tomb at Blenheim en route.

The city of the dreaming spires has been home to some of the greatest of all English writers from the religious tracts of John Wesley, through the inspired works of C S Lewis and Lewis Carroll to the modern day Colin Dexter, creator of the unforgettable Inspector Morse. And then there's T S Elliot , J R Tolkein, W Auden, John Keats and simply too many other to mention! We'll vist Christchurch college, and most memorably, it's great dining hall where the walls are adorned with portraits of the great. Then we'll follow the 'Alice in Wonderland' walk and have fun spotting places and faces which later became part of Alice's adventures, see places connected with C S Lewis and recognisable in the film 'Shadowlands', and also see other film sites readily recognisable from the Morse TV series.

Theatre Option: Oxford boasts one of the countries oldest theatres and depending on schedule there may be an opportunity to go to a perfomance tonight.

We will meander towards London today, following 'old father' Thames though splendid countryside. En route we've a few magical literary moments to share, such as visiting John Milton's cottage, finding where Toad, Ratty and Mole enjoyed messing about on the river in Kenneth Graham's 'Wind in the Willows', and seeing book locations from Jerome K Jerome's 'Three Men in a Boat'. An undoubted highlight will be finding Thomas Grey's original setting for his 'Elegy in a Country Churchyard' and if there's time, perhaps see where H G Wells set out on his fortune after writing 'Mr. Polly'.

Departure day. But why not stay in London for a day or two more to enjoy a London literary weekend. You can attend a couple of plays, perhaps go to the Globe to see how theatre in the 1600s was viewed. There are London's literary museums or houses to be seen (there are properties you can visit connected with Keats, Dickens, Carlyle and Dr Johnson. We'd be very pleased to help out with any extension arrangements you'd like to make.

© As we publish full tour descriptions, you may find others offering our unique itineraries.  But, just as you find when others sing the songs of Paul McCartney, they're often not quite as good as when sung by the original composer!