Saturday - Day 2: Overnight - Bath: We will meet you at London's Gatwick or Heathrow Airport.   (If you are already in the UK we will make arrangements to have you picked up.) Realizing you will be tired after your journey, we will give you a couple of hours to take a nap, and freshen up. During the afternoon we will take a short walking tour of Bath. Bath is a spectacularly beautiful city which stands on the River Avon among the hills of England’s West Country, and on the edge of the Cotswolds. The city’s compactness and striking architecture - Roman baths and sweeping Georgian terraces - combine to produce one of the most elegant sights in Europe. The ancient Celts, who first inhabited this area, believed that Bath’s hot springs were sacred, but it was the Romans who built the temple and the famous baths - now restored to their original grandeur.

Sunday - Day 3: Overnight - Bath: This morning we will visit The Roman Baths and Pump Room site at Bath is one of Britain’s best known, most spectacular and most frequently visited ancient monuments.  The state of preservation of the ancient monument is exceptional.  This is partly due to simple good fortune in the way that successive developments over the past two millennia have left much of the site unscathed.  In particular it is due to the entrepreneurial yet fundamentally sympathetic approach to the development of the site adopted at the time of the discovery of the greater part of the Roman baths between 1878 and 1896.

After our lunch break, we will visit the Bath Abbey, The Jane Austen Museum, and Sally Lunn's reputed to be amongst Bath's oldest buildings.

Monday - Day 4: Overnight - Bath: After breakfast today, we will take a short ride to Wells, where we will visit the Cathedral and gardens, which are particularly beautiful.  We will then head back to Bath for the remainder of the day.

Wells - the first church to be built on the site of the modern Cathedral in Wells was founded in 705 AD by Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherbourne, under the patronage of King Ina of Wessex. In 909 the Diocese of Wells was created and Aldhelm's Church became the first Cathedral Church of St. Andrew, which it remained until 1088 when John of Tours moved the cathedra (the bishop's (seat) throne from which cathedrals take their name) to Bath, destroying the original church as he did so. The ruins that he left stand in the gardens surrounding the modern cathedral. Picture at right shows BCT guests enjoying a sunny day at Wells Cathedral.

Tuesday Day 5: Overnight - Bath: Glastonbury is a small market town of some 8,000 people in the county of Somerset. It is a thriving conventional town but is also a world famous spiritual center of Pilgrimage. Legend has it that Arthur Pendragon received the invincible Excalibur from the lady of the Lake which once surrounded Glastonbury - the Isle of Avalon. In the town itself there are many specialist shops catering for those interested in the sacred energies of Glastonbury. Glastonbury is blessed with a wealth of well maintained and marked public footpaths allowing most of its sites and attractions to be reached on foot.

It is this rich tapestry of myths, history and present day spiritual experience, and their accessibility, which draws pilgrims and residents alike to this holy island. There are many myths and legends associated with Glastonbury. Many of the legends of the town center on Glastonbury Abbey, now a beautifully cared for ruin in its own spacious green parkland. It is a place of special peace and tranquility. Some of the legends associate the Abbey with the earliest Christian settlements in this country and include the legend that the boy Jesus visited Glastonbury with his uncle Joseph of Arimathea. This visit is celebrated in the hymn ‘Jerusalem’. Later Joseph is said to have brought two cruets filled with the blood and sweat of the dying Jesus and to have buried these somewhere in Glastonbury.

Wednesday - Day 6: Overnight - Bath: On tap today is a visit to the famous gardens at Stourhead followed by the town of Bradford on Avon.

Stourhead must rank as one of the most beautiful classical landscapes, not just in Britain but in the world. It is a superb example of the eighteenth century English ideal of the classical villa, in a setting of water, trees, grass and temples. The time was a reaction against the formal French gardens and Stourhead is a superb example of what can be with imagination and the initiative to go beyond the recognized bounds of garden development. Stourhead has also become an arboretum, with a fine selection of conifers and rhododendrons.

Bradford on Avon grew up around 'broad ford' and the slopes of the river. The narrow roads are lined with grey buildings in mellowed Bath stone. The textile industry had been the backbone of the local economy for six centuries until its demise at the beginning of this century. At one time Bradford had more than thirty cloth factories. However when King James I enacted a law compelling all cloth to be dyed in London, by a merchant to whom he was in debt. This law ruined most of the trade in the West Country. The trade changed when Paul Methuen brought over a colony of Flemish weavers to introduce improved techniques.

Thursday - Day 7: Overnight - Stratford: Today will be our "lets explore the Cotswolds" day. After breakfast we will say goodbye to Bath and head towards Stratford upon Avon home of William Shakespeare. Our journey will tour the Cotswolds. Bourton-on-the-Water, Stow-on-the-Wold, Broadway, and many other villages and towns.

Bourton-on-the-Water is known as the 'Venice of the Cotswolds' and is in an area of outstanding natural beauty. The village's delightful old world Cotswold houses are built of locally quarried stone - the oldest date back to the seventeenth century.

Broadway is in the county of Worcestershire. It has been called the “showpiece” of the Cotswolds, with its elegant bow fronted stone houses grouped around a wide main street and village green. Once a fashionable Coaching stage, Broadway is said to have had 23 inns at the height of its popularity in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  The village began as a possession of the Benedictine Abbey of Pershore, and a royal charter from King Edgar dated 972 AD still exists and describes the boundaries of Broadway. It remained a possession of the Abbey until the reformation in 1539, when it was sold by the Crown and passed into private hands.

Friday - Day 8: Overnight - Stratford:  We plan to spend the whole day exploring Stratford upon Avon.

"From the four corners of the earth they come.....to kiss this shrine......" This quote from the merchant of Venice labels the revolving globe in the visitors center at Shakespeare's Birthplace. It symbolizes the universal appeal and popularity of Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare, the English world's greatest literary and dramatic genius. Warwickshire's oldest market town, Stratford-upon-Avon possesses a peculiar English character.  The birthplace of William Shakespeare, steeped in culture and history. Set in the beautiful rural Warwickshire countryside, on the banks of the river Avon.

The town, small in size, but large in history and interest. The streets themselves hold a thousand delights with the chemistry of the ages mixed in with the needs of today. It is a thriving and busy town of just over 20,000 inhabitants whose day-to-day business is conducted amongst the rich architecture. William Shakespeare's significance to the town can be found in his families' houses found about the streets.

Saturday - Day 9: Overnight - Stratford:  Today we will take a short ride to Warwick where we will visit the Castle of the same name.

The earliest military strategist to make use of the area's defensive features was Ethelfleda, daughter of Alfred the Great. With Danish invaders threatening Mercia, the central Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Ethelfleda ordered the building in AD 914 of a 'burh' or an earthen rampart to protect the small hill top settlement of Warwick. It was, in fact, another invader who was responsible for the first true castle built on the present site. William the Conqueror, wanting to consolidate the Norman Conquest in the midlands and north of England, established a motte and bailey fort here in 1068 as a means of holding the area and securing his lines of supply.

William appointed one of his followers, Henry de Beaumont (c. 1088-1119), as Castellan or Constable. The castle would then have consisted of a large earth mound with a timber stockade around both the top and base. It was not until later in the 12th century that stone structures started to replace these wooden ones.

Sunday - Day 10: Overnight - Stratford: Today we will visit the City of Gloucester and then to Winchcombe to view Sudeley Castle.

From the day the Roman legions marched through the green Severn Vale and founded the ancient City of Glevum, visitors from around the world have made Gloucester the focal point of their travels. Today, the city enjoys all the benefits of a modern county capital plus the international charm of an historic cathedral, renovated docklands and pedestrianized city center.

Winchcombe is home to Sudeley Castle and grounds, pictured right. Home to Lord and Lady Ashcombe. This is one of England's great historic houses dating back one thousand years. Once the property of King Ethelred the Unready, Sudeley was later the magnificent palace of Queen Katherine Parr, Henry VIII's sixth wife, who is buried in the Castle church.

Monday - Day 11: Overnight - Oxford: We say goodbye to Stratford and head on to Oxford, home of the university of the same name. On route we will pay a visit to the Duke of Marlborough's little palace at Blenheim!

Blenheim Palace is located in the village of Woodstock, the home of the Dukes of Marlborough. Sir Winston Churchill's grave in located in the nearby village of Bladon. Woodstock has much more to offer. Before the Norman Conquest, when the Wychwood Forest stretched from the Cotswolds to London, English Kings had lodges in Woodstock - 'a clearing in the woods' giving a possible derivation of its name. King Alfred is reputed to have stayed at Woodstock in 890. Ethelred the Unready held a council in the town suggesting its size had grown fit to accommodate a king. In 1279, Henry II established a market and by the 13th century it had grown to the status of a Borough.  

Tuesday - Day 12: Overnight - Oxford: The City of Oxford, home to the famous university and of course Chief Inspector Morse and his sidekick Sgt. Lewis. Today we will explore several of the colleges and much of the town.

Wednesday - Day 13: Overnight - Oxford: Today we are going to visit Broughton Castle located near Banbury We will leave the afternoon free for that last minute gift and souvenir buying.

Thursday - Day 14: Maybe some time for last minute shopping before heading to the airport for your return trip home, or if you are joining another BCT tour, this will be a free day for shopping and sightseeing.

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