BRITAIN SAMPLER - 2009

10 days incl. air, or 9 days from London to London (GE)

Return to Scotland Vacations

Vacation Overview

Our most popular Britain vacation offers you the absolute best of this great land. Your trip starts in London with visits to St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Changing of the Guard, if held. See all the famous landmarks in London before taking a special walk through the ornamental gardens of Hampton Court Palace. Then venture on to Stonehenge and Bath, where you see the Roman excavations. Visit Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon before traveling to picturesque Llangollen in North Wales, home of an annual international contest for poets and musicians. On to Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital, to tour the famous Edinburgh Castle and the Queen’s Holyrood Palace. The next day, tour Sir Walter Scott’s Abbotsford House. A walking tour of the medieval city of York, plus visits to unique Belvoir Castle and the market town of Stamford, complete this magnificent Britain vacation.

Things to see on your vacation: View Vacation Photo Slideshow

A Vacation Story Gretna Green

"There are many legends of love that surround Gretna Green – the first town encountered across the Scottish border. For centuries, Gretna Green has been synonymous with elopement and blacksmith marriages, although marriage by a blacksmith is more legend than fact. Until the 18th century, church marriages among the lower classes in Europe were almost unheard of. Instead, lower class weddings were usually looked at as “marriage by declaration.” When England passed the Marriage Act of 1754, establishing church weddings as the only legal form of marriage, a sudden industry began over the border in Scotland, where couples could still wed by declaration. Scottish “blacksmith priests” began working in pubs and inns and the eloping couples came in droves."