Southern England private tour: London to Jurassic Coast

In the afternoon check-in to our hotel, located in one of London’s most celebrated neighbourhoods. Choose to take it easy, wander around Covent Garden, or St James’s Park (the Oldest Royal Park) and Piccadilly areas, in the heart of ceremonial London.

• Hotel: Overnight in Covent Garden Hotel, central London. Think design-led, super cool and bursting with delightful details
• Free evening

After breakfast we set off for our first UNESCO site of the tour. A less-crowded – and therefore more enjoyable – part of the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site, Avebury is the largest prehistoric stone circle in the world. This Neolithic site features three stone circles that weave in and around a pretty Wiltshire village. We’ll also stop at the nearby West Kennet Long Barrow, one of the biggest Neolithic chambered tombs in Britain.

We also visit Lacock, a quintessentially English village with an 800-year-old abbey guarding its secret treasures.

When we arrive in Bath, take a moment to relax and enjoy your hotel – a lively place with a quiet courtyard garden close to the famous Bath Assembly Rooms – then spend the rest of the afternoon and evening exploring Bath’s honey-hued streets. Where and when you go is up to you.

• Hotel: Overnight at The Queensberry, a four-star boutique hotel in an 18th-century townhouse. This desirable establishment blends noble Georgian décor with 21st-century trappings
• Group dinner in an acclaimed independent restaurant nearby

After breakfast, we tour the World Heritage Site of the City of Bath, including the Roman Baths in the morning, and after lunch, the best of Georgian Bath. You’ll see some of the most famous architecture of this majestic city, including the Royal Crescent, the Circus and the unmissable Bath Abbey. You’ll also hear the surprisingly human-centred story behind the characteristic, buff-coloured Bath Stone that defines the city.

If you prefer, you can skip the tour to browse Bath’s many historical buildings, independent shops – the shopping here is top notch – or visit your choice of museum, gallery or artist studio. Many of these places are no more than a 10- or 15-minute walk from The Queensbury Hotel. Seren, your guide for these first few days, is happy to make suggestions based on your interests.

• Hotel: The Queensberry, Bath
• Free evening

After breakfast, we travel to the little city of Wells in the bucolic county of Somerset. Its cathedral is described as “unquestionably one of the most beautiful” and “most poetic” of English Gothic cathedrals. It’s also home to one of the few chained libraries in Britain. This remarkable library is filled with books published before 1800 and accessed by a stone spiral staircase.

We then head to Lyme Regis, Dorset. This historic seaside town has been the setting for many famous films, novels, and TV dramas. The tide will be right for an exclusive fossil hunt on the beach. Find out all about the fascinating geology from your local guide who will also show you the famous Blue Lias rocks, with their distinct limestone bands alternating with blue-black clays formed in deep time, 200 million years ago.

From there, walk into the town as your guide talks you through the extraordinary life of Mary Anning, discoverer of dinosaur fossils and subject of the recent film Ammonite. Then, take a stroll along The Cobb, Lyme Regis’s striking harbour wall made famous by Meryl Streep in The French Lieutenant’s Woman, and by Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion, which was recently made into a film by Netflix (2022).

• Hotel: Check-in to Mortons Manor, Corfe Castle village, for two nights
• Group dinner

Start the day in the charming village of Abbotsbury. We’ll walk half a mile to take in sweeping views of vast Chesil Beach and see the medieval chapel of St Catherine’s.

Chesil Beach is some 18 miles (29 km) long, running all the way from Portland to West Bay. It is the location of a large Iron Age Fort and the beautiful backdrop for many films, including The Dam Busters and On Chesil Beach.

We then drive east along the coast to see the iconic Durdle Door rock arch and take a short walk around Stair Hole. Our final stop is Lulworth Cove, as picturesque as it is dramatic.

• Hotel: Mortons Manor, Corfe Castle village, Dorset.
• Free evening

Start your last day of the tour with a private guided walk around Corfe Castle and the village at its feet. Built by William the Conqueror, Corfe was one of the first castles in England to be built from stone. It’s positioned to defend one of the few gaps in the steep-sided Purbeck ridge, which extends across Dorset.

Then, we’ll make the short journey to Kingston Church, nicknamed ‘the Cathedral of Purbeck’. According to poet John Betjeman, it “gleams with Purbeck marble”. We’ll finish off with a visit to the Etches Collection museum, which houses the spectacular fossil skull of a pliosaur, carefully extracted from the cliffs above Kimmeridge Bay in 2023. If the weather is fine, there may be time for a walk to see Old Harry’s Rocks or some famous dinosaur footprints.

After a traditional pub lunch, travel back to London by train, arriving in central London by late afternoon.

Note: If required for reasons beyond our control, GeoCultura reserves the right to substitute alternative accommodation of equal or higher quality or adapt the itinerary if required.