England: Oxford, the Cotswolds, Bath, the Lake District and York

1. Jour 1 : London to Oxford

   London Paddington by train to Oxford

   • En train
   • Welcome dinner in Oxford
   • Nuit : Oxford
   Détail du jour 1

   We meet your See Sight Tours guide at London Paddington between about 9 and 10 am (the exact time and meeting point come with your final itinerary) and take a direct train to Oxford, about an hour through the Thames valley. Our minibus meets the train and takes the bags to the hotel while we walk into the centre for lunch on your own. In the afternoon your guide leads a walk through the university city: Broad Street and the Sheldonian Theatre, the Bridge of Sighs, Radcliffe Square with the round Radcliffe Camera, and the Bodleian quadrangle. We go inside Christ Church to see Tom Quad, the cathedral and the Great Hall, the model for the dining hall in the Harry Potter films. From April to September we end the afternoon on the water, in chauffeured punts from Magdalen Bridge along the Cherwell; in other months we walk Christ Church Meadow instead. Then we sit down together to a welcome dinner in the centre.

   Compris

   • Standard-class train from London Paddington to Oxford with your guide
   • Bags taken from Oxford station to the hotel by minibus
   • Guided walk of central Oxford: the Sheldonian Theatre, the Bridge of Sighs, Radcliffe Square and the Bodleian quadrangle
   • Christ Church: Tom Quad, the cathedral and the Great Hall
   • Chauffeured punt on the Cherwell (April to September)
   • Welcome dinner in Oxford

   Activités en option

   • The Ashmolean Museum (free entry) in the free time at lunch

   Temps libre : Lunch on your own in central Oxford

   Activité : About 3 hours on foot on pavements and college flagstones, with some stairs at Christ Church. Christ Church closes parts of the college for university events; we confirm the visit with your final itinerary.

2. Jour 2 : Cotswold villages

   Oxford to Bourton-on-the-Water, Lower Slaughter, Stow-on-the-Wold, Chipping Campden and the Rollright Stones, then back to Oxford

   • Environ 2.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Oxford
   Détail du jour 2

   We leave Oxford at 8:30 and drive about an hour west to Bourton-on-the-Water, arriving around 9:30, before the day coaches, while the River Windrush and its low stone bridges are still quiet. From Bourton a field path of about 2 km follows the meadows to Lower Slaughter, where the River Eye runs past honey-coloured cottages to an old mill; the minibus meets us there. Lunch is a sit-down meal at a pub in Stow-on-the-Wold, the market town on top of the hill, with time afterwards to walk its square. In the afternoon we drive north to Chipping Campden, whose curving High Street of wool merchants' houses has hardly changed in three centuries, with the arched Market Hall of 1627 at its centre and the tall tower of St James's wool church at the far end. On the way back to Oxford we stop at the Rollright Stones, a Bronze Age circle on a ridge, before a free evening in the city.

   Compris

   • Bourton-on-the-Water early, before the day coaches
   • Field path walk from Bourton-on-the-Water to Lower Slaughter
   • Sit-down pub lunch in Stow-on-the-Wold
   • Guided walk of Chipping Campden: the High Street, the Market Hall and St James's Church
   • The Rollright Stones

   Option plus facile : Ride the minibus from Bourton-on-the-Water to Lower Slaughter instead of walking.

   Option plus active : Walk on from Lower Slaughter to Upper Slaughter, about 2 km more on field paths, and meet the minibus there.

   Temps libre : Evening free in Oxford

   Activité : About 2 km on a field path with gates and some mud after rain; the rest is village streets.

3. Jour 3 : Burford, Bibury, Avebury and Stonehenge

   Oxford to Burford and Bibury, then Avebury, Stonehenge and Bath

   • Environ 4 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Bath
   Détail du jour 3

   We check out after breakfast and head west into the southern Cotswolds. Burford comes first, a short walk down its sloping High Street to the bridge over the Windrush. Bibury follows mid-morning, before the lunchtime peak, for Arlington Row, a 14th-century wool store turned into weavers' cottages in the 17th century, and the trout-filled River Coln. We leave the Cotswolds for the chalk downs of Wiltshire and a sit-down pub lunch in Avebury, a village built partly inside a great henge whose stone circle is the largest in Britain; your guide walks you among the stones, which you can touch. Stonehenge is about 50 minutes south, across Salisbury Plain through Shrewton. Our timed entry is mid-afternoon: the visitor centre's exhibition first, then out to the circle, its great sarsens raised around 2500 BC. Stonehenge and Avebury share a UNESCO listing from 1986. That is about four hours of driving in all, but in five legs, none much over an hour, each ending in a walk, a lunch or a visit. We reach Bath, our home for two nights, at about 6 pm.

   Compris

   • Burford High Street
   • Bibury and Arlington Row
   • Sit-down pub lunch in Avebury
   • Guided walk among the Avebury stones
   • Stonehenge with a timed entry and the visitor centre exhibition

   Option plus facile : Ride the shuttle bus both ways between the Stonehenge visitor centre and the stones.

   Option plus active : Walk out to Stonehenge from the visitor centre over the downs, about 2.5 km, and ride the shuttle back.

   Temps libre : Evening free in Bath

   Activité : About 4 hours of driving, split into five legs by Burford, Bibury, lunch at Avebury and the Stonehenge visit. About 3 hours on foot over the day, on grass and gravel paths; the Avebury stones stand in sheep fields.

   

4. Jour 4 : Bath

   A day in Bath on foot

   • Petit-déjeuner
   • Nuit : Bath
   Détail du jour 4

   We are at the Roman Baths when they open at 9 am, ahead of the coach parties that fill the walkways by late morning. Hot water still rises from the spring into the Great Bath, and the museum below walks you through the temple of Sulis Minerva and the bathing rooms the Romans built around it. Your guide then leads a walk through the Georgian city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987: past the Abbey and the Pump Room, across Pulteney Bridge with its shops built over the Avon, and up to the Circus and the Royal Crescent, the curve of thirty houses finished in 1774. The guided morning ends around 12:30, and the afternoon and evening are yours: soak in the rooftop pool of Thermae Bath Spa, see a restored Georgian house at No. 1 Royal Crescent, climb the Abbey tower, or walk the National Trust's Bath Skyline path above the city. Your guide can book a table for dinner.

   Compris

   • The Roman Baths at opening
   • Guided walk of Georgian Bath: the Abbey, the Pump Room, Pulteney Bridge, the Circus and the Royal Crescent

   Activités en option

   • Thermae Bath Spa
   • No. 1 Royal Crescent
   • Bath Abbey tower tour

   Option plus facile : Spend the afternoon at Thermae Bath Spa or in a café on Abbey Green.

   Option plus active : Walk the Bath Skyline, a waymarked National Trust loop of about 10 km through meadows and woods above the city.

   Temps libre : Afternoon and evening free in Bath

   Activité : About 3 hours on foot in the morning, with a steady climb from the Abbey to the Royal Crescent.

   

5. Jour 5 : North by way of Chester

   Bath to Chester, then north to Ambleside in the Lake District

   • Environ 5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Ambleside
   Détail du jour 5

   This is the trip's one long road day, about 415 km and five hours of driving, because it carries us from the south of England to the north. The train would mean two changes with bags, so we break the minibus journey with about three hours in Chester instead. We leave Bath at 8:30, with a coffee stop on the M5, and reach Chester before noon. Your guide walks the group along part of the city walls, the most complete in Britain, first built by the Romans when the city was the fortress of Deva, then down into the Rows, two-tier medieval galleries of shops, and past the Eastgate Clock. Lunch is a sit-down meal in the centre. In mid-afternoon we drive north on the M6 into Cumbria and the Lake District, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2017, arriving in Ambleside at the head of Windermere at about 5:30 pm. The evening is free in the village.

   Compris

   • Guided walk on Chester's city walls and through the Rows
   • Sit-down lunch in Chester
   • Drive into the Lake District to Ambleside

   Option plus facile : Skip the walls and spend the Chester stop at the cathedral or in the Rows.

   Temps libre : Evening free in Ambleside

   Activité : The longest drive of the trip, broken by a coffee stop and about 3 hours in Chester. About 1.5 hours on foot on the walls, with steps up and down.

6. Jour 6 : Beatrix Potter country and Windermere

   Ambleside to Hill Top, Hawkshead and Tarn Hows, then Bowness and back to Ambleside by boat

   • Environ 1 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : Ambleside
   Détail du jour 6

   We cross to the quiet west side of Windermere for the first timed entry of the day at Hill Top, the 17th-century farmhouse Beatrix Potter bought in 1905 with the earnings from The Tale of Peter Rabbit; the rooms and garden appear in her books, and the house is small, so the first slot is the calmest. Hawkshead is a few minutes on, a village of whitewashed houses and narrow lanes where we sit down to lunch; the Beatrix Potter Gallery is here if you want more. In the early afternoon we drive up to Tarn Hows and walk the level path around the tarn, about 3 km with views to the Langdale Pikes and Coniston Old Man. Then we drive round to Bowness and board a Windermere cruise north up the lake to Waterhead, a short walk from our hotel in Ambleside. The evening is free.

   Compris

   • Hill Top, Beatrix Potter's house, on the first timed entry of the day
   • Sit-down lunch in Hawkshead
   • Walk around Tarn Hows
   • Windermere cruise from Bowness to Waterhead (Ambleside)

   Activités en option

   • The Beatrix Potter Gallery in Hawkshead

   Option plus facile : Stay in Hawkshead for the gallery and a café while the group walks Tarn Hows; the minibus collects you on the way to Bowness.

   Option plus active : Walk up to Tarn Hows from Hawkshead, about 4 km on lanes and paths with a steady climb, and join the group at the tarn.

   Temps libre : Evening free in Ambleside

   Activité : About 2 hours on foot on good paths; Hill Top has steep stairs inside.

7. Jour 7 : Grasmere, Castlerigg and Derwentwater

   Ambleside to Grasmere, Castlerigg Stone Circle and Keswick, then back past Thirlmere

   • Environ 1.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Ambleside
   Détail du jour 7

   Grasmere is first, a few minutes north, where William Wordsworth lived at Dove Cottage from 1799 to 1808 and wrote much of his best-known poetry; we visit the cottage and its hillside garden, then St Oswald's churchyard, where he is buried, and the small shop by the lychgate that has sold Grasmere gingerbread for generations. Over Dunmail Raise and past Thirlmere we reach Castlerigg Stone Circle, raised around 3000 BC in a ring of fells, with Blencathra and Helvellyn on the skyline. Below it lies Keswick, where lunch is your choice. In the afternoon the Keswick launch crosses Derwentwater. Walkers step off at Hawes End to climb Catbells with the guide; everyone else rides the full circuit of the lake and walks out to Friars' Crag, the point Ruskin loved, for the view up Borrowdale. Dinner tonight is at a Lakeland inn, together.

   Compris

   • Dove Cottage and garden, Grasmere
   • St Oswald's churchyard and Wordsworth's grave
   • Castlerigg Stone Circle
   • Derwentwater launch from Keswick
   • Dinner at a Lakeland inn

   Option plus facile : Ride the launch around the whole lake and walk the short level path to Friars' Crag.

   Option plus active : Climb Catbells (451 m) from Hawes End with your guide, about 5 km and 360 m of ascent, with a rocky scramble near the top, and come down to the launch.

   Temps libre : Lunch on your own in Keswick

   Activité : Catbells is steep and rocky near the summit and takes about 2.5 hours; the easy option is level lakeshore walking.

   

8. Jour 8 : Through the Dales to Fountains Abbey and York

   Ambleside to Sedbergh, Hawes and Aysgarth, then Fountains Abbey and York

   • Environ 4 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
   • Nuit : York
   Détail du jour 8

   We leave the Lakes at 8:30 and cross east into the Yorkshire Dales by Sedbergh and the long green valley of Wensleydale, with stone barns and dry-stone walls running up the fellsides. A coffee stop in Hawes, a market town at the head of the dale, is followed by Aysgarth, where the River Ure drops over three wide limestone steps; a woodland path links the falls. Lunch is a sit-down meal at a pub in Wensleydale. In the afternoon we reach Fountains Abbey, one of the largest monastic ruins in England, founded by Cistercian monks in 1132, and walk on into the Georgian water garden of Studley Royal, with its moon ponds and temples; the two are a UNESCO World Heritage Site together. York is under an hour away, and we arrive at about 5:30 pm, with the evening free inside the city walls.

   Compris

   • Hawes in Wensleydale
   • Aysgarth Falls
   • Sit-down pub lunch in Wensleydale
   • Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Garden

   Option plus facile : See the Upper Falls at Aysgarth from the viewpoint by the bridge, and ride the visitor shuttle between Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal.

   Option plus active : Walk the full riverside path to the Lower Falls at Aysgarth, about 2 km there and back.

   Temps libre : Evening free in York

   Activité : About 3.75 hours of driving, split by Hawes, Aysgarth, lunch and Fountains Abbey. About 2.5 hours on foot over the day, on woodland paths and level grass.

9. Jour 9 : York

   A day in York on foot

   • Petit-déjeuner et repas du soir
   • Nuit : York
   Détail du jour 9

   We start at about 9 am in the Shambles, the narrow medieval street of overhanging timber-framed houses, while it is still quiet and before the shops open. From there your guide climbs onto the city walls at Bootham Bar and follows them round to Monk Bar, with the Minster's towers above the rooftops. Inside York Minster, completed in 1472 after more than 250 years of building, you see the nave, the chapter house and the Great East Window, a wall of early 15th-century stained glass about the size of a tennis court. The guided morning ends around 12:30 and the afternoon is free: the National Railway Museum (free entry), Jorvik Viking Centre on the site of the Viking town, Clifford's Tower, or the full 3.4 km circuit of the walls. In the evening we sit down together for a farewell dinner in the city.

   Compris

   • The Shambles early, before the shops open
   • Guided walk on the city walls from Bootham Bar to Monk Bar
   • York Minster with your guide
   • Farewell dinner in York

   Activités en option

   • Jorvik Viking Centre
   • Clifford's Tower
   • The National Railway Museum (free entry)

   Option plus active : Walk the whole 3.4 km circuit of the walls in the afternoon.

   Temps libre : Afternoon free in York

   Activité : About 3 hours on foot, with steps up to the walls, narrow wall paths with a parapet on one side, and Minster floors.

10. Jour 10 : York to London

    York by train to London King's Cross

    • En train
    • Petit-déjeuner
    Détail du jour 10

    After breakfast the minibus takes you and your bags the short distance to York station, just outside the city walls, and your guide sees the group onto a direct train to London King's Cross. The journey takes about two hours down the East Coast Main Line, through the flat farmland of Lincolnshire and past the towers of Peterborough Cathedral, and you arrive in central London around midday. From King's Cross St Pancras the Piccadilly line runs direct to Heathrow in about an hour, Thameslink trains from St Pancras reach Gatwick in about an hour, and St Pancras International for Eurostar is next door. If you are flying home today, book a flight leaving after about 5 pm from Heathrow or Gatwick. If you would rather stay on in London, or carry on north to Edinburgh by train from York and join our Scotland trip, ask us and we can book extra nights and tickets for you.

    Compris

    • Transfer with your bags to York station
    • Standard-class train from York to London King's Cross

    Activité : Book a flight from Heathrow or Gatwick leaving after about 5 pm.

Faune et météo : April and May bring lambs in the Cotswold and Lakeland fields and long evenings; June to August are the warmest and busiest months; September and October are quieter, with autumn colour in the Lakes and the Dales. Rain is likely at some point in any month, so each day has an indoor alternative.

• Oxford2 nuits
• Bath2 nuits
• Ambleside3 nuits
• York2 nuits