A Full Itinerary of Romance & Statecraft Tudor England Tour
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Romance & Statecraft Tudor England with WILL CHR Travel HIS WILL TOUR Day 2 Friday: Flight-London combines culture, history Heathrow-Runnymede- 9 or 11 Days August 8-16 and visits to settings fea- Penshurst Place-Ashdown T Park tured in your favorite WILL-TV (or return the 18th), 2019 Upon arrival at London Heathrow From $4932* programs. We take our unique, easy-paced itinerary approach to airport, we are met by our tour man- ager, Victor Seedman. Our first stop • The counties of Kent, Surrey parts of Southern England and has become a new tradition for us, a & Sussex, south of London: The Cotswolds we have not visited Hobbit-style “Second Breakfast” near • Penshurst Place • Ashdown before. On a WILL custom tour, where the Magna Carta was signed in Park • Hever Castle • Leeds we always have minimum two- Runnymede. This allows the oppor- Castle • Seven Sisters white chalk night hotel stays to keep the pace tunity for a proper breakfast and cliffs on the English Channel modest—this time staying three to freshen up after deplaning. • Sheffield Park & Gardens • Talk four nights at both locations. This by Tudor author, Elizabeth also gives the possibility of more Norton • Hampton Court • The free time than the average tour Cotswolds: • Highclere Castle allows. Best of all is traveling with Above: the original Leeds Castle was wooden • Ellenborough Park • Sudeley other Friends of WILL who share and owned by a Saxon chief from 857; below: a royal welcome at Hever Castle. Castle & Tea • Owlpen Manor, a kinship from the first day. Gardens & Lunch • Thornbury Group size is limited and Castle • Monmouth, Wales tours fill up quickly! Don’t • Optional extension to London delay in reserving your seat now! Itinerary Day 1 Thursday: Central Illinois-Chicago-Flight Danda and Erin of WILL welcome you aboard our private motor coach to Chicago where we board our overnight non- stop flight to London. Unique tours since 1986 Penshurst Place, a hunting lodge for Henry VIII Once revived we head to hotel or in the town of Forest Row; was convenient for courtship being only a few Penshurst Place and Gardens for a pri- transportation will be provided. (B) miles from Hever Castle, childhood home of vate tour of this stately home built in Day 3 Saturday: Ashdown- Henry’s second wife Anne Boleyn. 1341. Penshurst was reportedly Henry Leeds Castle-Hever Castle- VIII’s favorite hunting lodge; Henry Ashdown visited often when besotted by Anne We drive east to Kent and Leeds Boleyn, who lived at nearby Hever Castle, ‘the loveliest castle in the Castle. Penshurst was used in the world’, for a private tour. Originally MASTERPIECE adaptation of Hilary a wooden fort of a Saxon chieftain, Mantel’s novel Wolf Hall. The Queen Leeds Castle was rebuilt by Norman Elizabeth Room, The Tapestry room, Robert de Crevecoeur in 1119. By the The Solar, The Long Gallery and The 16th century, Henry VIII was using Crypt were all used in filming – to cre- Leeds Castle asOvernight a dwelling Stays for(# hisnights) first ate a perfect Tudor period setting. wife, Catherine of Aragon. En Route Stops Mid-afternoon we drive to Delight in Airsome Flights free time to Ashdown Park Hotel and Country explore the gardens, maze and fal- Club, our home for three nights. Ourscotland conryDalwhinnie center. Then we journey to hotel is surrounded by Ashdown Ft. WilliamHever Castle, where we will see Your Tour Hosts Forest, known to be the inspiration THE HIGHLANDS GlencoeSthec o castletla@ nPitlochry groundsd transformed to for Winnie-the-Pooh’s Hundred Kinloch Rannoch Danda Beard, Isles of a medieval encampment and may @ St. Andrews Acre Wood. The country houseIona was is WILL’s Mull Obansee “knights” in their colorful livery built in 1867 by Mr. Thomas Charles Stirling #Edinburgh Development minglingCastle with their King Henry VIII Director Thompson, a Member of Parliament, and Anne Boleyn. Admission to the who died in 1892. In his will he left a castle and garden is included for you black suit to each of his employees so to explore on your own. Tonight, we they would be smartly dressed for his return to Ashdown for our welcome funeral. dinner. (B, L, D) The rest of the day is free for wan- dering the lovely grounds or catching up on sleep! Maybe you would like Erin Lippitz, to try your swing at the E N G L AND Major Gifts on-site 18-hole par 3 golf The Cotswolds Director course or enjoy a relaxing Sudeley Thornbury $Cheltenham spa treatment. As is our Wales Hampton Court Optional Heathrow custom, we do not include 2London Extension Owlpen Leeds Castle dinner this first night so Highclere Penshurst # Hever you can turn in earlier if # Overnight Stays (# nights) Castle Forest Row Castle you like. However, there • En Route Stops Cliffs Eastbourne will be plenty of options Air Flights to choose from at the Tour The Great Gate of Hampton Court acres of parkland and a woodland with Hever Castle Gardens Day 4 Sunday: Ashdown- a collection of exotic trees and shrubs. Eastbourne-Seven Sisters Henry VIII visited the home in 1538, as documented by the Domesday Cliffs-Sheffield Park-Ashdown Book. The park was used as a training Today is our day for the scenic ground for Canadian soldiers during coast, plus a bit of English ‘managed’ the Second World War. (B) nature! We head south to East Sussex and the English Channel. If tramping Day 5 Monday: Ashdown- about the white chalk cliffs is not your Hampton Court-Cheltenham cup of tea, you will have free time for Today we depart Ashdown exploring and shopping in Eastbourne, for Richmond upon Thames and the Victorian seaside resort. Hampton Court Palace for a guided The walkers continue on to the tour. Originally built by Cardinal hamlet of Birling Gap and the Seven Thomas Wolsey, he gave it to Henry Sisters and Beachy Head. These tow- VIII in a vain effort to restore himself ering cliffs and undeveloped coastline to Henry’s good graces. Henry must have often been used in films to stand have needed it for his royal entou- in for the Cliffs of Dover. rage of 1,000 courtiers! Afterwards we will have lunch and a talk by his- Free time for lunch is provided torian Elizabeth Norton (at right). before we gather again to drive to Her research and writing centers Sheffield Park Garden, owned by the around the contributions of women National Trust. The park was original- to English medieval history. Her ly designed by Lancelot “Capability” 13 books include “She Wolves, The Brown in the 18th century and later Notorious Queens of England”. A reg- expanded by the home’s various own- The Seven Sisters is a series of chalk cliffs ular on BBC programs, Elizabeth will by the English Channel. They form part of the ers. Four ponds with water lilies form relay some insights into her research South Downs in East Sussex, between the the garden centerpiece surrounded by of the Tudor period. towns of Seaford and Eastbourne The Cotswolds, charming villages made of We continue on to The Cotswolds, We continue on to Highclere honey-coloured stone a lovely area of quaint homes built Castle, which was made famous as of honey-colored stone and site of the setting of Downton Abbey. Your Ellenborough Park, our hotel for four admission will give you free time to nights. The hotel was built as a manor wander about this still-private home. house from 1485 and later home to a former Governor of India and Jane Highclere Castle in the Cotswolds was the Digby, a ‘scandalous society beauty’ location for Downton Abbey who was seventeen years his junior when they wed in 1824. Dinner is included tonight. (B, L, D) Day 6 Tuesday: Cheltenham- Sudeley Castle-Highclere Your Tour Manager Castle-Cotswolds villages-Chel- tenham Victor Seedman has led the last eight We travel to Winchcombe, WILL tours in Europe. He started lead- Gloucestershire and are welcomed ing tours in the 1980’s and has contin- with tea and biscuits to Sudeley ued to do so while being the Head of Castle, the private home of Elizabeth, Travel, Tourism & Hospitality for the London campus of the University of Lady Ashcombe. After time to see the Gloucestershire. interior, enjoy a look at its nine indi- vidual gardens. The centerpiece is the Queens Garden, so named because four of England’s queens—Anne Boleyn, Catherine Parr, Lady Jane CHR Travel has been awarded Grey and Elizabeth I—once admired the prestigious Queen’s Award for the hundreds of varieties of roses Enterprise. We have worked with found in the garden. Catherine Parr, the same people for 33 years, going the last of the six wives of King Henry back to when we visited Yorkshire on VIII, is buried on the grounds of WILL’s very first tour. Sudeley Castle in St. Mary’s Church. Monmouth’s fortified bridge in Wales mixed woodland, one of the surviving ancient Afterwards we have time in woodlands. Monmouth the Cotswolds village of Burford is on the 177 mile long and then enjoy an included dinner Offa’s Dyke, a trail along in the Venice of Britain, Bourton- the border of Wales and on-the-Water. We then return to England. We have time Ellenborough Park. (B, T, D) for shopping and private Day 7 Wednesday: exploration like the small The Beachy Head Lighthouse near Eastbourne on the English Cheltenham-Welsh Marches- museum named for Lord Channel Cheltenham Nelson, the victor of We head west into Wales and the Trafalgar. Nelson had birthplace of Henry V of Agincourt come here to arrange In the Cotswolds: 15th century Sudeley Castle’s secret garden.