England, & The West Country
Looking at this new tour for 2025 and I notice it has a pace and activity level of 4. Reading the day by day itinerary I’m trying to figure out how they determined this. It doesn’t seem like it should be rated that way,
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Looking at this new tour for 2025 and I notice it has a pace and activity level of 4. Reading the day by day itinerary I’m trying to figure out how they determined this. It doesn’t seem like it should be rated that way,
Comments
Wow. St Michaels Mt, Tintagel (castle ruins) and Port Isaac would be some serious walking. The rest doesn't seem that ambitious. The 4 for pace is hard to see from the itinerary without knowing morning start times, etc. Looks interesting though.
NJcolleen,
I took a cursory look at the website and noticed that Tauck has a cautionary statement about the extent of walking and on very steep terrain at times. However, I also noticed there are times where hotel stays are for three nights (which I always relish).
I'm sure if you call Tauck they can give you additional insight. If you do learn more information please report back. Thanks.
I was scheduled for a week-long art tour to Cornwall last year w/UK based ACE Cultural Tours, but the King's Coronation led them to radically change dates & I couldn't do original brilliant plan, back-to-back with a Tauck tour to France. Anyway, ACE has dropped their visit to St. Michael's Mount & offered me this explanation, so heads-up:
"I spoke with a tour manager who went there with a group and the reason it was taken off the itinerary was that the group found it too arduous a trek. It seems like a wonderful day out and very much worth seeing; the consensus is you have to be quite fit to get the most out of it. They say: ancient and rugged, some parts of the island and castle can be very tricky to navigate, especially if you have limited mobility. Paths around the island are steep, cobbled and uneven with no handrails in some places. There are unguarded edges and steep drops."
Thanks, MarketArt, for the additional insight.
Hello from NJ,
Perhaps I can help, as my wife and I have scheduled this tour for Thursday, May 29, 2025. It is our first Tauck tour and our first non-business travel to the UK.
Tauck has revised our itinerary to start with (4) nights at the Gainsborough Bath Spa, followed by (3) nights at Fowey Hall Hotel and (2) nights at Bovey Castle. The final night is the Fairmont Windsor Park.
This possibly means some additional time on the tour bus, but we are promised to visit all the sites/attactions as advertised. Frankly, four nights in Bath sounds wonderful, as we enjoy cities and dining out and a glass or more of beverage.
We were initially concerned as described above about the arduous adventures at St. Michael and Tintagel. Our solution has been to step up our fitness level, lose some weight and get decent shoes. I'll report back in June whether we were successful in enjoying all the attractions.
Cheers!
Please do report back. It is a lovely part of the country, i have not been to Cornwall and Devon for over forty years, but Bath maybe twenty years ago, I love it there. I’m even contemplating booking the tour in the next couple of years. It’s new, so I assume they are still ironing out the kinks which can happen on new tours. Being on a bus in the UK, you pass the most beautiful countryside so I would have no problem on a longer ride. Yes, you need to get fit.
Yes, please report back. This trip sounds amazing.
I am also flying into London and spending a handful of days in the Coswolds and then flying to Florence to connect with A Week in Tuscany and then taking a train to connect with A Week in Puglia.
Sounds wonderful! Enjoy.
We had a day trip from London to the Cotswolds last year. A friend organised a trip to Highclere castle ( Downton Abbey) and another village featured in the series. It was fun, the guide on the bus there had worked on the set and told us lots of secrets about the cast. You drive past areas used in the movie industry too