A luxurious learning experience complete with a guide from London’s National Gallery
The Orient Express is launching a series of special vacation packages called “The Art of Travel,” including tours to Venice, Paris and within England. Travelers will learn about the lives of artists such as Canaletto, Bellini, Titian, Veronese, Monet, Rubens, Turner and Constable while seeing the places that inspired their work and visiting the places that house their work today, accompanied by an expert from London’s National Gallery.
All tours include at least one night at London’s Goring Hotel and begin at The National Gallery, where a specialist will give a guided introduction to selected masterpieces before the journey begins. Trips include:
THE VENICE OF CANALETTO: This seven-day tour will give travelers the opportunity to view Venice through Canaletto’s eyes. Travel from London aboard the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express through France, the snow-capped Alps and northern Italy. While in Venice, guests stay at the Hotel Cipriani and trace the footsteps of Canaletto, who is forever associated with magnificent Venetian views. Trips are limited to 20 people and depart on April 9, October 8 and October 22, 2011.
VENETIAN PAINTERS: This is a six-day tour that introduces the traveler to the great Venetian masters, from Giovanni Bellini and Titian to Veronese. Starting in London with a tour and dinner at the National Gallery, travelers will fly to Venice, where they will step back into the Italian Renaissance and explore great sights such as the Doge’s Palace, the Accademia and Ca’ Rezzonica with an expert from the National Gallery. The journey ends with a return to London on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express. The trip is limited to 20 people and departs on April 30, 2011.
IMPRESSIONS OF PARIS: Also offered will be a series of five-day tours focusing on French Impressionism, where travelers will trace Claude Monet’s long, dynamic life and will learn about the birth of a new artistic movement, when painters first began painting in the open air to capture the effects of light. From London, guests board the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express and can marvel that two of the restored carriages aboard the Art Deco train were already carrying passengers when Monet was producing his last masterpieces. Departures are April 9, May 7, June 25, July 27, August 24, September 24 and October 22, 2011.
BRITISH PULLMAN: These tours combine the thrill of a steam-hauled luxury train, complemented by gourmet dining — brunch on the outbound journey and a three-course supper on the return — with delightful scenery and include visits to Bath’s finest art collections.
Collectors and Collecting: This trip is timed to coincide with the reopening of the Holburne Museum in May 2011 following a major restoration. After a guided tour of the museum, there will be a tour of “Beckford’s Bath,” including the eccentric William Beckford’s house and the grounds leading up to Beckford’s Tower. The trip will depart on June 28, 2011.
Thomas Gainsborough: This journey focuses on landscape paintings by notable British and European artists including Rubens, Turner and Constable. Highlights include the new exhibition “Gainsborough’s Landscapes: Themes and Variation,” at the Holburne Museum and a walking tour of artists’ Bath. This tour will depart on October 11, 2011.
This holiday season, Royal Parks in London are celebrating with special events in places including Richmond Park, Greenwich Park, Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park.
Visitors to the parks can partake in the festivities by choosing their own real Christmas tree, wander through four of the Royal Parks following the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Walk, visit the deer enclosure in Greenwich Park, or take a timeless winter horse carriage ride.
While in London, take in the Winter Wonderland Hyde Park, where you can hear live music, go ice skating and visit the Angels Christmas and Yuletide Markets.
Photos courtesy Visit Great Britain and Lake District National Parks
Sprawling 885 square miles across Cumbria in North West England, the Lake District National Park is England’s largest National Park. With 16 sparkling lakes, England’s five tallest mountains, six national nature reserves and over 400 towns and villages, it’s no wonder the Lake District is a popular attraction.
Natural beauty isn’t the only thing going on in the Lake District. Activities range from child-friendly adventure parks to high-adrenaline assault courses. Don’t miss Lake Windermere—the largest of the lakes—where you can try everything from open water swimming to sailing, canoeing, kayaking and windsurfing.
The arts and culture scene started by the likes of William Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter is still thriving today, with a year-round calendar of literary, arts and heritage events and countless museums, galleries and performance venues to visit. With so much to see and do, your only problem will be deciding what to do first.
All that exploring is bound to work up an appetite. And you’re in luck, because the Lake District is one of Britain’s food and drink hotspots. Whether you fancy a refreshing brew at a traditional tearoom, a pint of real ale at a pub with a roaring fire or a elaborate meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant, you’ll find something to suit every taste in the Lake District.
Top five things to see and do: 1. Take the kids to meet Peter Rabbit and friends at the World of Beatrix Potter. 2. Watch one of the productions at the Theater by the Lake in Keswick. 3. Explore the nearby cosmopolitan city of Carlisle and the historic town of Kendal. 4. Visit one of Cumbria’s 24 microbreweries—you’ll find many of these at the back of local pubs. 5. Tour the poet William Wordsworth’s house, Dove Cottage, surrounded by the countryside that inspired him.
Manchester, in the United Kingdom, was the first industrialized city in the world, born of cotton. It was here that the Industrial Revolution took hold, and Manchester was the most productive center for cotton processing in the world. Later it was the world’s largest marketplace for cotton. During the Victorian era it was dubbed “Cottonopolis.”
Times have changed. Now this metropolitan area of nearly half a million people, one of the largest urban areas in the United Kingdom outside of London and Edinburgh, is associated with its interesting architecture, culture, music scene, and scientific and engineering endeavors. And its sports teams such as the Manchester United Football Club, the world’s most famous soccer team, is a constant reminder that Manchester is a highly diversified city, and is looking to the future.
Over the years, the city has reinvented itself from a technological standpoint, but remaining are many of the old historic buildings that attract thousands of tourists each year.
An example is the iconic four-star Midland Hotel on Peter Street, overlooking St. Peter’s Square. This impressive building, built in 1903 by the Midland Railway to serve Manchester Central railway station, stands right in the heart of Manchester city center. Over the course of its 100-year-old history, the hotel has played host to kings, queens, presidents, prime ministers and rock stars, including Winston Churchill, Princess Margaret, the Duchess of York, and the actress Sarah Bernhardt and Jeremy Brett (who played Sherlock Holmes), as well as the Sultan of Zanzibar, who arrived with an entourage of 60 people.
It’s in this 312-room hotel that Charles Rolls met Henry Royce in 1904 to form Rolls Royce. The French Restaurant in the hotel is one of the most important restaurants in the city, and also where a number of films have been shot.
MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry, located at the site of the oldest surviving railway station in the world, is a family-friendly museum with lots to offer. The museum features everything from the first steam-powered mill and to the microcomputer, with lots of hands-on exhibits. There’s a large collection of vintage vehicles and historic working machinery, especially since the Industrial Revolution started in Manchester. You can even take a train ride behind a replica steam locomotive.
The John Rylands Library is less a library in the usual sense and more of a masterpiece of Victorian Gothic architecture: it looks more like a castle or cathedral. Rylands, who died in 1888, was one of Manchester’s most successful industrialists and had a large fortune. This world class collection includes the oldest known piece of the New Testament, the St. John Fragment. Other treasures here include illuminated medieval manuscripts and a 1476 William Caxton edition of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
MANCHESTER ART GALLERY The Manchester Art Gallery on Mosley Street has one of the country’s finest art collections in spectacular Victorian and contemporary surroundings. The gallery’s recent $53 million transformation has enabled the collection to be presented to visitors in new ways. Highlights include outstanding pre-Raphaelite paintings, craft and design, and early 20th century British art. Exhibits are always changing, but I saw a display of French and British Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings, along with some splendid Victorian paintings.
The Gothic-style Manchester Cathedral, in the center of the city and built between 1441-1882, is a medieval church occupied by the Bishop of Manchester. Its official name is the Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St. Mary, St. Denys and St. George in Manchester. It was extensively refaced, restored and extended in the Victorian period, and then again following severe bomb damage in the 20th century; it contains many precious artifacts.
MANCHESTER TOWN HALL A guided tour of Manchester Town Hall is an activity worth doing while here. The hall was designed in Victorian Gothic style by Alfred Waterhouse and opened in 1877. Among its treasures are the Ford Maddox Brown murals which are a monument to the ideas of Victorian Manchester, portraying the science, invention, education, trade and textile industry. Among the impressive rooms is the Sculpture Hall, containing statues of notable Manchester figures from the past, and the Great Hall, featuring a glazed skylight inscribed with the names of every mayor, lord mayor and chair of the town council since 1838. Be sure you see the mosaic pattern of bees on the floor outside the Great Hall. The bee symbolizes Manchester’s industry and is featured on the city’s coat of arms.
After dark, try out one of Manchester’s “real ale” pubs, or check out Matt & Phred’s Jazz Club, a nightclub where you can hear great jazz from some of the best performers, including Wynton Marsalis. Other clubs include Band on the Wall and Night and Day.
For food, try the Damson, a neighborhood restaurant in Heaton Moor, the relaxed San Carlo Cicchetti’s with delicious small dishes, and the French brasserie called Aubaine, on the top floor of Selfridges, which also offers a great view of Manchester.
Selfridges Department Store, Manchester
The Romans were known to inhabit the area around Manchester as early as 79 A.D., and the 19th century cotton trade brought great change to this city. Now with new glass buildings and a new development in the northern downtown core where the Industrial Revolution first took root, Manchester keeps re-inventing itself. Visitors will enjoy the mixing of old and new into a masterful blend.
Fans of the Fab Four can immerse themselves in Beatlemania on a visit to Liverpool, a historic port city that gleams with a revitalized downtown waterfront.
Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr; Liverpool, England, is proud to be the birthplace of the best band in the world, and Beatles fans making a pilgrimage to the city won’t be disappointed. Visit Liverpool
By Randy Mink Photos by author unless noted
Most pop culture icons come and ago, but some seem to live forever. Take the Beatles, for instance.
The band broke up in 1970, but 45 years later the Fab Four’s songs are heard everywhere, and their legacy continues to be a huge tourist draw in Liverpool, their hometown in northwest England.
Decades after Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr took the music world by storm, their fans from the 1960s descend on Liverpool as if it were a religious pilgrimage site.
I recall Beatlemania from my high school days, and though I wasn’t totally wrapped up in it, recently I made my way to Liverpool with Beatle sites at the top of my to-see list.
The Magical Mystery Tour bus excursion and The Beatles Story Museum brought back memories and had me humming Beatles tunes for the next week. While I encountered plenty of nostalgia-hungry tourists of my generation, I was surprised to see so many young people eager to know about the mop-haired group that belted out “Twist and Shout” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”
Most of those taking the self-guided audio tour of The Beatles Story the day I visited, in fact, were a third my age. The tour, which follows the boys from their humble beginnings in working-class Liverpool to fame and fortune, has 36 stops and features recorded comments from family members, fans, business associates and the Beatles themselves. Artifacts range from guitars to stage outfits.
The exhibition includes black and white film clips of the Beatles and their adoring female fans, plus glimpses of their movies like “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Help!” and “Yellow Submarine.” I was especially interested in the re-telling of their first American tour and how they captivated U.S. teens. When the four lads appeared for the first time on TV’s Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, 40% of the country was watching.
A Beatles tribute show at the Cavern Club, the famous Liverpool music club where the Fab Four performed prior to their worldwide fame.
Visitors to The Beatles Story also see a re-creation of the Cavern Club, the Liverpool nightspot where the group performed early in their careers. Though the club was demolished in 1973, it was rebuilt with the same bricks to the same dimensions at the same Mathew Street location. Today the Cavern Club plays host to hundreds of bands, but tourists are most interested in the Beatles connection. I attended a Saturday night Beatles tribute show that featured Beatles impersonators who sang a string of hits—“Love Me Do,” “Day Tripper” and “I Saw Her Standing There,” to name a few.
Many older fans were singing along or mouthing the words. One group was celebrating a woman’s 70th birthday. But most in the standing-room-only crowd were born long after the Beatles disbanded.
Music blares out of other bars on pedestrianized Mathew Street, the entertainment hotspot of central Liverpool. Nearby, statues of the Fab Four adorn the Hard Day’s Night Hotel, the only Beatles-themed hotel. Its public areas are filled with Beatles memorabilia. Souvenir stores in the Cavern Quarter abound with Beatles items, from bobbleheads to snow globes.
Adjacent to the Mathew Street corridor is Liverpool ONE, a 42-acre, car-free development that has revitalized downtown. To tell the truth, I wasn’t expecting to find something so glitzy in this old port city. Outdoor escalators connect three levels of stores, which include familiar names like Disney, Toys R Us and Forever 21. Festivals enliven its plazas.
Liverpool ONE is right across the road from the spiffed-up Mersey River waterfront. Albert Dock, a nautically-themed collection of converted 19th century port buildings, houses museums, shops and eateries. The Beatles Story is one of its tenants. Also occupying the red-brick warehouses are the Merseyside Maritime Museum and International Slavery Museum.
(left to right) Albert Dock, a collection of renovated warehouses on the Liverpool waterfront, abounds with shops, eateries and tourist attractions, including The Beatles Story Museum.; The Pump House, in a former pumping station, is one of many restaurants at Albert Dock in Liverpool.
For lunch one day I visited the Pump House, the old pumping station at Albert Dock, and chowed down on steak and ale pie with mashed potatoes and peas. Dessert was also very British—sticky toffee pudding, a warm square of toffee-flavored sponge cake drizzled with toffee sauce and swimming in a bowl of custard sauce. For dinner I feasted on Indian cuisine at The Spice Lounge, an Albert Dock restaurant around the corner from The Beatles Story. The butter chicken—chunks of chicken bathed in a mild tomato gravy and served over rice—was a culinary highlight of my whole trip to England.
If I had time for another Albert Dock restaurant, I would have chosen Circo and enjoyed circus acts with my meal. Also on the waterfront is the state-of-the-art Museum of Liverpool, a free-admission national museum that tells the story of Liverpool through interactive exhibits. Don’t miss the immersive, 360-degree Beatles film. And there’s a branch of The Beatles Story at Pier Head, the Mersey River ferry terminal. Now showing is the excellent GRAMMY Museum exhibition “The British Invasion: How 1960s Beat Groups Conquered America.” It showcases groups like the Rolling Stones and Dave Clark Five as well as the Beatles.
For a relaxing introduction to Liverpool, take a River Explorer Cruise aboard Mersey Ferries. The narrated 50-minute cruise begins and ends to the strains of “Ferry ’Cross the Mersey,” the 1960s hit by another British pop group, Gerry and the Pacemakers.
The Magical Mystery Tour visits Liverpool sites that inspired Beatles tunes. Visit Liverpool
Perhaps the highlight of my brief visit to Liverpool was the Magical Mystery Tour, a two-hour bus circuit that spotlights places where the Beatles spent their early days in working-class neighborhoods. Filled with revealing tidbits about their lives and how they met each other, the tour visits locations that inspired songs such as “Penny Lane” (a street) and “Strawberry Fields” (an orphanage).
The humble birthplace of George Harrison is a stop on the Magical Mystery Tour, a bus tour to sites associated with the Beatles.
Besides those two spots, we had photo stops at Paul’s family home (where John and Paul wrote 100 songs) and George’s birthplace, a humble brick rowhouse that’s now a private residence. Paul’s place is owned by the National Trust and open for tours. Our guide pointed out the primary school that George and John attended, the church where John met Paul in 1959, John’s house (a National Trust property) and massive Liverpool Cathedral, where Paul auditioned for the choir but didn’t get accepted.
Beatles tunes were interspersed with the Magical Mystical Tour commentary. Passengers on the bus were all ages and from all over the world.
For sheer pampering in Liverpool, I would recommend 2 Blackburne Place, a chic bed and breakfast inside an 1826 Georgian house that’s been divided into six town homes. Run by Glenn Whitter, a former musician and interior designer, and his wife Sarah, a former teacher, it’s an oasis of calm just a few blocks from Liverpool Cathedral and a 15-minute walk from the city center.
The word “plush” best describes 2 Blackburne Place. Think plush towels, plush bathrobes and thick-thick rugs. The deep tub and heated bathroom floor also will spoil you. My room, done in beige and blues, was decorated with original artwork, art objects (including a Chinese vase) and six framed black-and-white photos of the Cathedral. Waiting for me after a day of sightseeing was a special treat—a plate of macarons and a crystal decanter of sloe gin.
At breakfast, serenaded by classical music while seated at a gorgeous, purple lacquered table in a dining room with a built-in bookcase, I appreciated all the helpful tips our guide Sarah gave me for making the most of my time in Liverpool. Cocooned in such comfort, though, I didn’t want to leave.
The Whitters can serve smoked salmon or kippers (smoked herring), but I chose a typical English breakfast of bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, and baked beans with minced onions and tomatoes. That was after the yogurt course with plump blueberries and slices of kiwi and watermelon. For the toast I had many choices of spreads—from French lavender honey to passion fruit/lemon curd.
Touches of luxury also awaited me the next day at the sleek Epic Apart Hotel on Seel Street, just minutes from the city center. I had a whole apartment, complete with kitchen, living and dining areas and a giant flat-screen TV. Contemporary in design and loaded with upscale amenities, Epic makes the ideal “home” in Liverpool. The friendly people at the front desk, staffed 24 hours a day, were attentive to my needs and had all the answers to my questions about getting around Liverpool. I appreciated their warmth and cheerfulness on the blustery, rainy day. After some soggy sightseeing, the hot chocolate packets I found in the kitchen really revved my spirits, and it was nice to relax on the comfy couch in front of the giant, flat-screen TV.
The kitchen had an oven, microwave, refrigerator and toaster, along with a full range of dishware and utensils. I also liked the oversized rain shower with dual shower heads and the premium towels. Bed linens were Egyptian cotton. Accommodations at Epic Apart Hotel range from studios to two-and three-bedroom apartments.
From the gritty to the luxurious, Liverpool provides a great look at English urban life outside of London.
European Traveler 