Cotswolds Escape

DAYS 1 & 2 – London, England | Woodstock

• Arrive at London’s Heathrow Airport
• Travel with an AHI Travel representative to Woodstock
• Check-in to the Macdonald Bear Hotel
• Welcome Reception and Dinner.

DAY 3 – Oxford | Woodstock

• Drive to Oxford to visit the oldest university in the English-speaking world
• Join a walking tour of the university town 
• Enjoy a group lunch, followed by a tour of historic Blenheim Palace

DAY 4 – Stratford-upon-Avon | Woodstock

• Begin the morning with a lecture about English writers
• Head to Stratford-upon-Avon to follow in the footsteps of William Shakespeare
• Unwind over lunch at a local establishment

DAY 5 – Minster Lovell | Bourton-on-the-Water | Stow-on-the-Wold | Woodstock

• Depart for a day immersed in rural England and Cotswolds villages
• Visit Minster Lovell, Bourton-on-the-Water and Stow-on-the-Wold
• Enjoy drives through Moreton-in-Marsh and picturesque Chipping Campden
• Listen to a local expert discuss modern England.

DAY 6 – Cotswolds | Woodstock

• Visit a large rural family farm located in the heart of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
• Enjoy a tour of the property and learn about the farm’s traditions and operations
• Take time to chat with the welcoming owners and sit down to a delicious lunch
• Dig into local dishes during a group dinner.

DAY 7 – Bath | Woodstock

• View the incredible Roman Baths, and see artifacts offered to Sulis and remnants of an ancient heating system
• Admire the Bath Abbey, Pulteney Bridge and the 18th-century Georgian Royal Crescent
• After, make your own discoveries in this sophisticated city
• Relax at the Thermae Bath Spa or visit Bath’s Fashion Museum.

DAY 8 – Woodstock | Personalize Your Journey

• Walk from the hotel to Blenheim Park where can soak up the beauty of the gardens or 
• Visit to Rousham House and Gardens for a tour of the Gothic manor house and perfectly appointed grounds
• Return to Woodstock for an afternoon at leisure
• Farewell Reception and Dinner tonight

DAY 9 – Depart for your home city

• Bid farewell to beautiful England 
• Depart for your gateway city

NOTE: Itinerary may change due to local conditions. 

Meet Paul Webb:

I joined the University of Michigan in the 1970s, coming from England via a post-doc in British Columbia. I had not expected to fall in love with Michigan and the Great Lakes. But I did. It helped that I am a fish biologist. As such, I have worked on marine and freshwater fishes, and fishes from less than a quarter of an inch long to sharks over 6 ft. But there are few pleasures greater than donning facemask and snorkel and making like a fish in Michigan’s lakes and streams. Or even on the Great Barrier Reef! So being a “fish guy” certainly helped, but what really appealed was the beauty of the Great Lakes. I love shoreline vistas overlooking oceans and seas, lakes and rivers. I have enjoyed spectacular views over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, all five of the Great Lakes, and wide river reaches from the Mekong to Ann Arbor’s Huron. But what is really eye-opening is to explore from a small boat. I have hoisted sails from Chicago through the Straits of Mackinac to the Kewanaw, from the Garden and Door Peninsulas to the North Channel, and western Lake Erie. We have even sailed the Florida Keys and the Celtic waterways between Wales and Ireland. These travels also fed my long interest in history. Many of my travels have followed the watery highways that played such a large part in the development of the American nations. These passages are in turn a microcosm of those global highways that have driven history. And with so much happening along coastlines around the world as well as in these Great Lakes, it is little surprise that I became an environmental scientist working on shoreline management! The beauty of environmental sciences is the wide range of material that must be explored to understand causes and develop solutions to environmental questions, spanning natural and social sciences, and humanities. Plus environmental scientists meet many people with more opinions than you can shake a stick at, and it is wonderful learning from each new story I hear. My enjoyment of these wonders only increased as more recently I have taken up painting and creative writing. I have been privileged to spend time in many places around the world, especially the UK following the draw of family. I have travelled over much of the UK, from Land’s End and the Isles of Scilly to John O’Groats and some of the even more northerly islands. The Cotswold area is my earliest stamping ground. I spent much of my early life in Oxford, Stratford was in the backyard. I met my wife when she was a student at Bath and I was at Bristol, I used to sing at Bath’s Hat & Feather. Some family ashes lie at Minster Lovell, the first place I drove to with a provisional license was Blenheim, an uncle ran the busses in Woodstock… Outside of Britain, an art historian daughter and archeologist son resulted in unexpected immersions across Italy, in turn leading to side trips in Spain and France. While Eurocentrism is strong in my travels, I have also seen parts of Eastern Asia and Australia, primarily with volunteer work teaching in Phnom Penh in Cambodia for many years. These travels are just the start… I still have no idea what I want to do when I grow up.