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England, Holland and Belgium - 14 Day Extended Tour - (Tour No. WW) |
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DAY ONE - SATURDAY Our first day's explorations cover a varied selection of attractions.
As with everyday on a tour, the weather, local events, group preferences
and the advice of your well-informed guide will dictate our exact routing.
However, the sheer, unspoiled charm and picture-postcard qualities of
the villages such as Lavenham and Long Melford will feature, as will
the Anglo-Saxon royal burial ground at Suton Hoo. We'll also be crossing
the ancient flat fens, seeing windmills and, in season, the commercial
flower and lavender fields. Our East Anglian experience today encompasses the counties of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. These are delightful counties full of hidden charms. It's a timeless rural landscape dotted with great houses, fortified manors, beautiful gardens, thatched villages and historical sites spanning a full 5000 years human life in England. This is also the land of the Pilgrim Fathers and other religious non-conformists who fled 17th and 18th century English religious and political intolerance to make new lives in the colonies. Highlights today will include Cambridge, where you'll enjoy a walking tour and visit to a college. Later, we'll be taking the short ride to Ely. This is one of England smallest cities and is dominated by a superb Norman cathedral, noted for its stained glass. Ely is most readily associated with Hereward the Wake, last of the great English Saxon nobles to hold out against William the Conqueror, and with Oliver Cromwell. We'll learn more of both of these fascinating men while here. DAY FOUR - TUESDAY This morning we'll have one of our few early starts as we'll want to make the most of our time in East Anglia before we board our ferry to the Continent. We'll tour through typical back roads countryside. In mid-morning we board the ferry at Harwich for the four hour crossing to the Hook of Holland. As soon as we leave the ferry, we're conscious that we're in a complete different culture. The flat landscape, local architecture and flower filled gardens and fields are just typical of the lowlands. We tour by way of the Hague and coastline toward our nightstop base. We will arrive at our accommodation in the late afternoon , leaving
time to discover Delft. Undoubtedly pretty, the town is popular with
tourists but by arriving either late or early we can miss the main and
maddening throng and have quieter time to perhaps visit the ceramic
factory and the Vermeer museum. What better way to commence our discovery of the lowlands than by spending a sometime in Amsterdam? And what fun to travel there on the local transport! We’ll enjoy a short waking orientation tour of the city first, thereafter, exploiting the philosophy of ‘organised independence’, you’re free to explore the city at leisure. Your guide will have provided you with not only a brief history of the city and maps but also practical advice on how to use the city's easy-to-understand tram system. Those who would prefer to accompany their guide during the day will be able to do so. There’s simply so much to see and do; the Anne Frank museum, the Rijksmuseum for the finest collection of Dutch old masters such as Rembrandt, Frans Hal, Vermeer, the flower market, Dam Square, the famed ‘Red Light’ district, the superb maritime museum, the Begijnhof. Or maybe, if you’ve a 20th century interest the Resistance Museum will be attractive? And garden fans will enjoy the botanic gardens or the immaculate eighteenth-century garden at the Willet-Holthuysen museum. Where to begin! One thing that should be apparent is that this is very much a walking
city (although there are optional canal barge tours) and not really
suitable for those with mobility problems. Our first stop of the day is at Gouda. This is everything you’d expect of a Dutch country town. If you’re on this tour in July or August then there’s an additional treat, the Thursday morning cheese market when over 100 local farmers descend on the market with cheeses to be weighed, tested and graded for moisture and texture. There are other attractions available all year including the wonderful stained glass of St Janskerk and the clay pipe museum. Then to Arnhem. Here those interested in one of the last war’s
greatest battles, Operation Market Garden, can visit Oosterbeek to get
some idea of the conflict and its effect on this part of Holland. Meanwhile,
those with less of a military interest can visit the wonderful Nederlands
Openluchtmuseum, where a huge collection of Dutch buildings have been
reassembled from all over the Netherlands in an imaginative way to recreate
the rural Dutch life spanning two centuries. Our itinerary today next takes us to the Leidsche Dam, where a picture postcard row of windmills along a canal stretches away from the road. One fascinating optional drive can take us via Rotterdam and Zeeland along the sea fortifications. We can also stop at the Delta Expo to see how it works. Lunch will be at the real Back-Roads town of Verre, once noted for its wool trade with Scotland. From here we board the ferry at Vlissingen across the Schelde to Breskens,
past Sluis and through pretty back roads to Ghent, where we'll enjoy
a short stop in this lovely medieval and less-touristy city where highlights
include the magnificent St Baaf’s cathedral, the sinister-looking,
12th century ‘Castle of the Counts’ and an excellent folk
museum recreating 18th and 19th century life of the region. Finally,
to Ypres for our nightstop. A day of ‘organised independence’ in the mediaeval city of Bruges which lies just a 40 minute drive from Ypres (Ieper). This morning your guide/companion will take you on a short walking tour of the major sights of the city. Then, you’re free to explore this truly delightful city at depth. Undoubtedly, this is the most perfectly preserved mediaeval city in western Europe. This is the perfect place either to ‘over dose’ on culture with visits to the many Flemish arts museums (and there’s a Michelangelo to see), or simply to spend a day relaxing, enjoying a fruit beer, typical chocolate or taking a horse drawn carriage ride around the winding city streets. Yes, it’s ‘touristy’ but lovely and totally unforgettable for all that. Dinner is not included tonight to allow you to make the most of your
visit to Brugge. Today we discover the sadness of World War I on a morning tour of the Ypres Salient. This will prove to be one of the most moving days you’ll ever experience - we guarantee it. Our day includes Passendale, a name to evoke the sheer bloody waste of men that was the Great War, thence to an amazingly preserved collection of original trenches at Sanctuary Wood, and nearby Hill 62 and Hellfire Corner. You'll see where John Macray wrote ' In Flanders Fields' , see some fine monuments to proud Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and British troops, and have various of the Ypres Salient battles described to you in vivid detail while overlooking the actual scene of the action. Finally in the town of Ypres itself, you’ll have an option to tour the superb ‘Cloth hall’ museum (‘In Flander’s Fields’) and attend the nightly playing of the ‘Last post’ at the Menen Gate. You could not be nearer the Western Front line than this as our accommodation is actually sitting beside the famed Hooge Crater. DAY TEN - MONDAY From Ypres we first visit Poperinge, then, crossing the great hop fields, we are soon in France and the town of Lille. We'll have time to explore the old centre, see the citadel and perhaps have time to visit the birth house museum of Charles De Gaulle. Dependent on timings we'll perhaps explore the surrounding areas with special reference to its Emile Zola connections. From Lille it's back roads through the hill top Cassel (with it's unsurpassed
views of Flanders and Picardy) and through the Marais marshlands to
St Omer and our French base for the following evenings. It’s difficult not to be confronted with both World War I and World War II when travelling anywhere in this region. In the Second War, the Luftwaffe made their base for air attacks on Britain here, and later sited their early rocket launching sites in the vicinity. We'll include a fascinating visit to one of these an learn about the early history of rocket science. The atmospheric town of Arras provides us with a different focus to war. There’s plenty to visit in this pretty town including the ancient town hall and it’s relaxing to sit and take lunch al fresco at a pavement café in the market square. Finally, we return for an afternoon in the small town of St Omer. Here
there’s an interesting cathedral, a superb local museum situated
in a historic house, pretty municipal gardens and some enjoyable shopping
opportunities! And tonight we enjoy a gourmet dinner at our pretty,
and typically French hotel. We rise early and drive the short distance to Calais and the Channel Tunnel. This is an experience in itself as we take our mini-coach onto the train and allow ourselves to be whisked the 27 miles beneath the English channel. We are in the ancient county of Kent. Here, in some of the most attractive countryside to be seen on this tour, we discover small and impossibly pretty, thatched cottage villages, see traditional oast houses, where the beer hops are roasted, and see the hop fields themselves. This afternoon we concentrate on an area of Kent that encompasses a great number of truly British icons representative of the country’s broad culture and history. There’s the site and interpretation centre of perhaps the most well known battle in English history, 1066. There’s the magnificently preserved 14th century, moated castle at Bodium. As has been happening throughout your tour, our informative and entertaining
Back-Roads Touring Co. guide/companion will be bringing it all to life
with explanation and information. Just when it appears that we couldn’t possibly top our last few days we’ve another one to enjoy! What better way to complete a most memorable tour than with a relaxed day touring some memorable homes and gardens? We start with one of the world’s outstanding gardens at Sissinghurst. Then, to Winston Churchill’s home of Chartwell, where you can almost still smell the great man’s cigars as we tour the exhibition of his life and achievements. Did you know he won a Nobel prize for literature and was a reasonable painter in addition to being a great war leader? Finally, we could have the wonderful Hever Castle, owned by both Henry VIII and more recently, the Astor family. Or perhaps another of Kent's particular attractions. Of course, it’s yet another perfect day for the photographers! We arrive back at our London base in the late afternoon having enjoyed
a tour of fabulous variety and great cultural depth. Alas, it’s time to return home.We will transfer you to the London airport of your choice unless you’ve decided to stay on in the capital for a few additional days, or plan to join another of our tours. You’ll be reliving and reflecting on what you’ve seen and experienced on this tour for many years to come and one of the marvels that will strike you is how little driving we’ve actually done and yet how much we’ve seen and how different the cultures. Note: this tour is occasionally run in reverse, begining with Kent, crossing to France, touring belgium and Holland, and returning through est Anglia. When operating a reverse itinerary it necessitates soem minor changes to our itinerary. |
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