mini literary england tour

You read the book - now have it come alive!

This is a feast for the bookworm, the literary-minded and simply those who enjoy seeing and learning about a country, not just 'photographing the sites' from a bus window. Here's the plot. Our knowledgeable and entertaining guide takes you, and just 10 or so others, through some of the UK's prettiest landscapes, visiting author's homes, literary museums, towns and villages where stories are set, and places that obviously inspired the artist's muse.

Naturally, as it is a Back-Roads Touring Co. tour, you'll be seeing sites the regular tourists miss, in parts of the country often neglected by the standard tour itineraries. And, even more importantly, you'll be meeting the locals.

We hope that by the end of our four days you'll not only have had your favourite stories leap off the page, and understand their authors and backgrounds better, but also have been introduced to a few new classic writers who might have escaped your attention. This will be a tour with a tail as well as a tale if it leaves you with some future reading pleasure.

This tour may be combined with selected dates of three-day Harry Potter tour (June to August). This tour can also be run for groups on any dates of tour choosing.

TENTATIVE ITINERARY	NIGHTSTOP

DAY ONE - MONDAY
We depart London and take a very short drive following the Thames Valley to the Chiltern Hills. Here are just a few of the sites you'll visit and experiences you'll enjoy. John Milton's 16th century cottage ('Paradise Lost' was part written here), Stoke Poges churchyard where Thomas Grey wrote his Elegy and is buried. T S Elliot ('The Waste Land'), G K Chesterton ('Father Brown') and famed children's author, Enid Blyton ('Noddy'), all lived in the picturesque coaching town of Beaconsfield. Beside the gently flowing Thames at Marlow, Bourne End and Henley, the following filled an empty page or two - Mary Shelly ('Frankenstein'), Jerome K Jerome ('Three Men in a Boat'), Edgar Wallace ('King Kong') and Kenneth Graham ('The Wind in the Willows'). This is a truly memorable day touring a 'forgotten' corner of England.	Hampshire
DAY TWO - TUESDAY
The counties of Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset are noted most especially for Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy. You'll see Austen's Chawton home and her final resting place at Winchester Cathedral. We'll travel through timeless English villages and towns that Hardy re-named for his novels but that are still instantly recognisable like 'Shaston', properly Shaftesbury. You'll see Stonehenge, Salisbury and both Hardy's cottage and the house where T E Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia 'The Seven Pillars of Wisdom') lived. If there's time (though rushing you is far from the Back-Roads style), we'll also try to see Gilbert White's house at Selbourne.	Hampshire
DAY THREE - WEDNESDAY
We travel eastwards to explore the counties of Kent and East Sussex. Look on your map of the UK - it's the South East corner, often called 'The Garden of England'. This is another day of fine touring centred around some iconic authors. First, there's H G Wells town of Midhurst. Wells was schooled here. Then to Arthur Conan Doyle's Crowborough where we'll play Sherlock Holmes and track down his old home and countless sites connected with him and his great detective. We'll also take advantage, as did Conan Doyle, of visiting the grand country house and gardens at Groombridge where there's a small Conan Doyle collection. Next on our tour is Bateman's, the home of perhaps the mightiest pen of all, Rudyard Kipling. You haven't read 'Kim', or 'Plain Tales from the Hills', or 'Barrack Room Ballads'? Lucky you - what future pleasure awaits! Finally, some exercise playing Pooh Sticks in the Ashdown Forest at the original bridge, and to discover the wonderful world of Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin in AA Milne's village.	Sevenoaks
DAY FOUR - THURSDAY
We continue with our Kent literary explorations with a really full final day. Firstly, with a visit to the very pretty harbour of Rye, a town featured in the life and works of Henry James. Then to Rodmill and Monks House, home and last resting place of Virginia Woolf (subject of the recent Hollywood award-winning film 'The Hours'). Next, following Chaucer's pilgrims to Canterbury, and to gasp in awe, as did the pilgrims of old, at the magnificent cathedral. Finally, to the narrow streets and castle of Rochester. The author here? Charles Dickens. And he's remembered here with an excellent modern interpretation centre and plaques throughout the town identifying story locations. We return to London in time to enjoy a theatre visit tonight (not included in the tour).	London own account not inc. in tour price
Optional One Day Extension If you have the time and the interest then why not add a day to your tour and join us on a 'Literary London' tour. On this we feature literary landmarks, author's homes, interested suburbs and curios connected with Dickens, Shakespeare, Keats, Oscar Wilde. Edward Lear, W W Jacobs, Dr Johnson, Pope, Dryden, Swift and many contemporary authors.
NOTE: Includes: four days touring, three night's accommodation with breakfasts and dinners, all entrance fees and services of driver/guide and companion.