Jane Austen Tour

Morning departure from London with your driver/guide for the county of Hampshire. We take you back in time to the 18th and 19th Centuries, through a countryside of turnpikes and toll roads. Visit one of the important posting-houses and discover the fashionable modes of transport in Jane Austen's novels: the curricle, the barouche landau and the gig. Lunch in a typical 18th Century pub (at own cost), followed by a walking tour of Winchester including the city museum and house where Austen died. Visit 11th Century Winchester Cathedral, to see where Jane Austen is buried and enjoy a tour of the Cathedral. This is truly Austen country and we promise many surprising additions along the way! Overnight accommodation in Hampshire hotel.

Breakfast. Visit the elegant Georgian city of Bath and a walking tour of the sites and houses where Jane Austen lived and visited. Explore places made famous in her Bath novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, such as the Assembly Rooms, Pump Room, Abbey Church Yard and Bath Street. Visit the Jane Austen Centre and enjoy the authentic period atmosphere and watch the video of Jane Austen's Bath. (The September date will include watching the parade as part of the Jane Austen festival). Lunch at leisure, followed by a visit to the picturesque village of Lacock, a popular setting for period dramas as it remains much as it did in the 18th Century. Lacock's Church Street and High Street appear as locations in Emma and Pride & Prejudice. Option of a typical English afternoon tea in a country tea room or gardens (at own cost). Overnight accommodation in Hampshire hotel.

Breakfast. Journey through the English countryside, seeing villages with thatched roof cottages and houses very much as they were during Jane's time. Visit the site of Steventon Rectory, where Jane Austen was born and lived until she was twenty-five and where the initial drafts of Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice were written. Halt at the old posting inn at Deane Gate and learn of its connections with Jane's brother and visit The Vyne, a large stately home where Jane and her sister attended society dances. Explore Jane Austen's home in Chawton where she lived for the last eight years of her life and the museum housing a fine range of Austen memorabilia. It was here that she revised and decided to publish Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. Close by is St Nicholas' Church, where Austen's mother and sister are buried. Return to London early evening.