Lynott Tours Inc| Celebrating the 200th birthday of Charles
Dickens DICKENS ROCHESTER, BROADSTAIRS AND LONDON TOUR 1 WEEK JUNE 3-11, 2012 June 03 DEPART HOME Flights on your own, or we can book them for you.  June 04 ARRIVE LONDON/MEDWAY Welcome
to London! You arrive at London's Heathrow Airport. As you exit from the
Customs Hall, you meet your experienced Lynott Tours guide and your skillful
driver. You board your deluxe motorcoach for the ride to MedwayCharles Dickens spent five of his childhood years in Medway from 1817 to 1822 and the Rochester area was the inspiration for many of Dickens's greatest works. He was a national legend when he returned for the last 13 years of his life, dying at Gad's Hill in 1870. This annual festival has evolved over the years to become what it is today - a spectacular event of colour, costume and entertainment. Thousands of visitors soak up the Victorian atmosphere, while parades make their way through central Rochester each day. The Dickens Festival's unique combination of music, dance, drama and street theatre has rightly earned it a place in the calendar as one of the key events of the summer. .jpg) June 05 ROCHESTER Travel to
Rochester, once of the home of Dickens. Other than London, Rochester appears in
Dickens books the most often. Our walk explores the remnants of Richmond Palace
and the splendid houses the aristocracy built themselves in the neighboring
villages of Petersham, Ham and Twickenham. But in Dickens' time the railway led
to middle class suburbanization, and Richmond became a favorite destination for
excursions. Eel Pie Island was named after a tavern (now demolished) famous for
its eel pies, that attracted steamers full of day-trippers. In Nicholas
Nickleby Mrs Kenwigs came from a very genteel family, having an uncle who
collected a water-rate; besides which distinction, the two eldest of her little
girls went twice a week to a dancing school in the neighborhood, and had flaxen
hair tied with blue ribands hanging in luxuriant pigtails down their backs, and
wore little white trousers with frills round the ankles'. The eldest Miss
Kenwigs joined a party, catching a steamer from Westminster Bridge to Eel Pie
island to dance in the open air to the music of a locomotive band.' The walk
starts near Richmond Green, originally a common where villagers pastured their
sheep but later a medieval jousting ground alongside Richmond Palace. Only the
gatehouse and parts of the old wardrobe in the courtyard survive from the Tudor
palace. It was a royal residence from 1125 until 1688. Henry VII (1509-47)
built the Tudor palace and his arms are on the gatehouse. His second daughter
Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) died here. During the Civil War of 1642-51 Oliver
Cromwell demolished the most important buildings. Very near to Richmond Palace
is Maids of Honour Row (1724) an excellent, entirely uniform, terrace' of three
story houses. They were built for the maids of honour of Caroline of Anspach,
the wife of George II (1727-1760). In Great Expectations Estella came to London
to be introduced to aristocratic society by a Mrs Brandley who lived here. Pip
met her coach and escorted her to her new home. We came to Richmond all too
soon, and our destination there was a house by the Green: a staid old house,
where hoops and powder and patches, embroidered coats, rolled stockings,
ruffles, and swords, had had their court days many a time. Some ancient trees
before the house were still cut in fashions as formal and unnatural as the
hoops and wigs and stiff skirts'. (B)  June 6 ROCHESTER Charles Dickens grew up in
Chatham and Rochester. Many of Dickens's books feature places and buildings in
Medway. Satis House in Great Expectations is the impressive red brick
Restoration House in Crow Lane, Rochester and Eastgate House, also in
Rochester, was referred to as Westgate House in his first novel, The Pickwick
Papers, and as the Nuns House in his last, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Here
you'll see Restoration House and visit Eastgate and the Dickens Centre. The
city's Victorian High Street glows with the sights and sounds of a scene of
more than a century ago. You wander the streets of the charming village to
enjoy the spirit of the past that is re-created here. We continue on to the
lovely old city of Canterbury. Feel the nostalgia of yesteryear as you peer
through small window panes of delightful, centuries-old establishments along
the cobblestone streets. Step through the doorways of fragrant shops to the
sound of a tinkling bell. Inside, discover candies, candles, tartans, lace and
woolly mittens. In the early evening, we attend "Evensong" at the
majestic Canterbury Cathedral - site of the martyrdom of Thomas Becket. (B)
 June 7 PORTSMOUTH Charles Dickens
was born in a modest house in Portsmouth, England in 1812. The house has
miraculously survived and is now preserved as a museum furnished in the style
of 1809 which is when John and Elizabeth Dickens set up the first home of their
married life there. John Dickens came to Portsmouth when his job in the Navy
Pay Office was transferred from London. They stayed here until 1815 when his
job demanded that he return to London. Charles Dickens only lived in Portsmouth
for the first three years of his life but he returned to the town on three
occasions. Once he returned to research background information for his novel
'Nicholas Nickleby', and on two occasions later in life when he was a famous
writer to give public readings of his work. (B)June 08 LONDON. Your sightseeing of London includes "Dickens London" including his house on Doughty Street, and the 400-year-old Old Curiousity Shop. Stopping at Dickens' home, now open as a museum, we see many of his manuscripts and learn the fascinating history of his life. It's "Inimitable" - like Dickens himself. Step back in time as we walk through the area that inspired the works of Charles Dickens. Bloomsbury was a fashionable place of residence for wealthy merchants and aristocrats of his time. We pass Georgian homes, any of which could have housed the characters of Jacob Marley or Ebenezer Scrooge. It's a London of nooks and crannies and alleyways and gas lamps and 18th- and 19th-century houses - and no cars! It's the London where Dickens lived and worked. It's the London of David Copperfield and Pip and Pickwick. DINNER AT  THE CHESHIRE CHEESE PUB The Cheshire Cheese
is one of London's most historic hostelries, having been rebuilt after the
Great Fire of 1666. The interior, with its low ceiling and open fire in the
hearth has changed little. Many literary men have been associated with the
Cheshire Cheese, including Dr. Johnson, Thackeray and Dickens. Oak tables and
sawdust floors provide an atmospheric setting for stout English cookery such as
steak and kidney pie. (B,D) June 09 CITY OF LONDON DICKENS TOUR Dickens Day Leadenhall Market, A special open event held in and around Leadenhall Market around two subjects that dominate City life and are vividly described in Dickens’s novels: food and money. Later, we explore Dickens and London at the Museum of London, a major Dickens exhibition highlighting the author’s links to the English capital, which inspired much of his writing. (CB)  June 10 A WALK THROUGH COVENT GARDEN You may even see Eliza
Doolittle! The walk starts in St Giles and goes through nearby Seven Dials,
where 'seaven streetes make a starr from a Doric Pillar plac'd in the middle of
a Circular Area'. These districts were among the worst slums in Dickens London.
Monmouth Street in St Giles was the only true and real emporium for second-hand
wearing apparel'. In his essay Seven Dials in Sketches by Boz, Dickens wrote
the streets and courts dart in all directions, until they are lost in the
unwholesome vapor which hangs over the house-tops, and renders the dirty
perspective uncertain and confined. The walk ends at Somerset House. In 1809
Dickens' father John Dickens married Elizabeth Barrow in the nearby church of
St Mary-le-Strand. He was working at the Navy Pay Office in nearby Somerset
House and met her through her brother who also worked there. In 1824 John
Dickens was imprisoned for debt and had to resign his post. Somerset House was
the first purpose built block of Government offices and originally housed the
Royal Navy, the Royal Society and the Royal Academy. (CB) June 11 HOMEWARD FROM HEATHROW You bid your fond farewell to England and your Lynott Tours Guide as you board your coach for the trip to Heathrow Airport and your return flight to the U.S.A., arriving the same day. No doubt along the way you'll have met a colorful group of eccentric characters, who will be long-remembered after you return home. (CB) Dickens 200th Anniversary Tour includes: *Minibus or motorcoach with driver/guide *First-class accommodations for 7 nights; room with private bath. *7 hearty breakfasts ( CB & B) * One dinner *Baggage handling at hotels. *All taxes and service charges. *All sightseeing and entrance fees. Some highlights: Your 3* & 4* hotels: Rochester/Canterbury Abbots Barton 3 nights Portsmouth Royal Beach 1 night London Holiday Inn Bloomsbury 3 nights
We can operate this tour for any size group, with a minimum of 6. However, the price is lower with a greater number of people.
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