Christmas Lunch in the Cotswolds

Depart your central London hotel by air-conditioned coach, and enjoy a panoramic sightseeing tour. Have your camera ready as you pass some of London’s major landmarks, including Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, Big Ben and others.

Next, drive to Oxford for a stroll around this ancient university town. Pass the honey-hued stone colleges, including Christ Church, where Lewis Carroll wrote his much-loved Alice in Wonderland stories and many scenes from the Harry Potter movies were shot.

View the sublime 18th-century Radcliffe Camera building and The Ashmolean, Oxford University's museum of art and archaeology, and hear tales of the traditions of college life from your guide.

Next, admire the gentle English countryside as you drive into the Cotswolds, a region of rolling hills dotted with stone-built villages, manor houses and churches. Hear how medieval wool merchants constructed the classic Cotswolds buildings, and stop for photos outside Blenheim Palace, the 18th-century estate where Winston Churchill was born in 1874.

Next, make your way to a traditional Cotswolds pub for your Christmas lunch. Settle inside the cozy Elizabethan inn and savor a traditionally English roast turkey with all the trimmings, followed by rich Christmas pudding and tea or coffee.

Nearby, the local festivities will spring to life, and if you’ve brought some Christmas gifts, the pub offers an atmospheric setting for sharing them. Perhaps finish by treating yourself to a real ale or wine (own expense), and then continue to Stratford-upon-Avon, where William Shakespeare was born.

Pass Anne Hathaway’s cottage before arriving in this quaint market town, and pose for photos outside Shakespeare’s birthplace or stroll around Holy Trinity Church, where the great playwright is buried. 

Your tour finishes with a hotel drop-off in London.