Literary Lovers: Jane Austen Tour 2024

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. Enjoy the atmosphere, and watch the Regency parade for the Jane Austen annual 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). (B)

Accommodation: Winchester Hotel or similar

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. (B)