Summer so far and the Olympic Torch is on its way!

Summer has been busy and has seen me travelling all across the South East - over to Brighton, to Hastings, Canterbury, Whitstable, Battle and many more. As well as these tours and my regular Tunbridge Wells tours I have also had some really interesting private tours to keep me busy - including school tours and family history research. It's been very satisfying creating a walk which includes the original home of someone's ancestors and taking people to where their family is buried; especially when some people have travelled from half way around the world to do this. It can be very moving.

As you may have already seen from my website that I'm starting Canterbury Historic Pub Tours and details of the upcoming dates etc can be found under Events/Tours. Walk in the footsteps of Pilgrims, Saints and Kings in beautiful Canterbury. You can always combine your stay with a Historic Pub Tour in the evening plus a day time historic tour around the city with me. Plenty of free time too to enjoy those cafes, the river side and the shopping!

Next week I'm looking forward to a busy week including my first Canterbury Pub Tour on Friday 20th July at 7pm (£10pp. Contact me to book your place). Plus the Olympic Torch starts its tour through Kent in Tunbridge Wells on Tuesday. I shall be there on the historic Pantiles cheering the flame on its way, before offering visitors their own walk around the area at midday. The following weekend is the start of the 30th modern Olympiad in London and in celebration of this and in retrospect of the two previous London games, I will be helping create a Vintage Olympic spirit as part of The Pantiles Vintage Weekend (www.pantilestraders.co.uk).

Tunbridge Wells Life

Exciting news - I am part of team that has launched a new website all about Tunbridge Wells!

We've been working on this site for almost a year now and it's great that we can now reveal the work of all our labours...and of course there is more to come from it. The photos taken on this site will be constantly updated, and eventually you will be able to buy the images too. So, even if you aren't able to come and visit the area, you can still download some fantastic and beautiful photographs. We are also hoping to add the facility to purchase books and leaflets about the area as well.

There are pages for local businesses to advertise on, a catalogue of local events (and my running and upcoming tours) and our accessibility expert, Eve, will be able to let you know about getting out and about in the town if you are in a wheelchair.

We are aiming for this to be for locals and tourists alike the best website to access for information about Tunbridge Wells. It's a work in progress but we have had so much positive feedback so far from everyone who has been on the site.

What is this site, I hear you cry?! Well, it's called Tunbridge Wells Life - and can be found here: www.tunbridgewellslife.co.uk

Enjoy, Explore and meet all the Team! And let me know what you think. 

Tunbridge Wells Tours

The season has started with a bang - some fantastic weather back at the end of March, but rather damp since then, however I'm sure things will hot up for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Celebrations and London Olympics!

Tours have been going well with various walks around Kent and Sussex organised for groups as well as individuals - Canterbury and Brighton have been the hot spots for me so far! But I do enjoy travelling further afield to Windsor, Chichester and even Dover to show people around South East England. 

My new tours in Tunbridge Wells itself began this month - I have a new Ale Trail that runs every fortnight throughout summer. They are currently on Tuesday evenings starting at 7pm and we talk about the historic pubs in old Tunbridge Wells - as well as sampling what they have to offer in 3 of the finest! Tickets cost £10 per person and include some free beer!! Contact me to book your place. You don't have to drink beer, or even drink, to come on the tour if history is your thing.

Tunbridge Wells Ale Trail (Photo (c) David Bartholomew)

As well as my regular Monday (11am) and Tuesday Tours (11am and 2pm) - that start at the Tourist Information Centre on The Pantiles and cost £5per person with discounts at Woods Restaurant - you can now also enjoy a Sunday Stroll once a month. My Sunday strolls take in the top of the town, and are perfect for a gentle walk before you enjoy your Sunday Roast! From Burton to biscuits the next Sunday Stroll is May 13th at 11am. Again you can reserve your place if you contact me directly - either ring 07759 226060 or email catherinepitt@hotmail.com - and I can give you more details of where to meet.

Remember if any of these dates and times aren't great for you, and you can organise a group of at least 5 people or more, I can make it a private tour at a date and time that suits you! Maybe as a gift for someone's birthday or anniversary - it's certainly something different!

The Pantiles CHRISTMAS TREASURE HUNT launch!!

It's only a few days to go now until my first Christmas event launches - The Pantiles Christmas Treasure Hunts 2011!

The Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells

Created by myself, I have made a separate hunt for children and for adults, so everyone can have some fun around the historic Pantiles of Tunbridge Wells.

The Treasure Hunts will be available to purchase from 5 locations in Tunbridge Wells from Saturday 26 November. Prices are £1.00 for Children, £2.00 for the Adults' Hunt. You can put completed entries into boxes that can be found in The Corn Exchange (at Shiraz) and in the Tourist Info Centre.

The grand draw will be on Weds 21 December, so all entries must be received by 5pm on Tuesday 20 December. Over £300 worth of prizes can be won, all donated very kindly by independent businesses! Please take a look at my EVENTS page for full details of where to buy the hunts, all the prizes to be won, and the Terms & Conditions.

Even if you are only visiting briefly over December and can't qualify for the draw, please do pick up a treasure hunt - It will keep you occupied and you will learn much about the area too, and also help a local independent business! Enjoy!!

Are you ready for The Pantiles' Christmas Treasure Hunts?! 

(Above image copyright David Bartholomew. All Rights Reserved)

New Readers and Christmas is coming!

It is only a few weeks now to Christmas - time seems to be flying by and we shall soon be in a new year, 2012, before we know it.

The weather has got a bit colder now in the South East, the weather had been quite mild for October and the start of November, but now you can smell the wood smoke in the air as people light their fires, and feel that chill in the tips of your fingers and toes. The Christmas adverts are starting with vigour now on T.V. and I know that the shops will soon be blasting out the Christmas carols and songs.

I too, as you know from an earlier blog, have been busy preparing for Christmas events since the end of Summer, and things are beginning to come together now. I aim to blog in my next one about what I will be putting on for all of you locals and visitors alike. In the meantime I just wanted to mention some new readers who have joined me from Latvia, Slovenia, The Philippines, Switzerland, Bosnia & Herzegovina, South Korea, Malaysia and from Ireland - welcome and enjoy!

In my research for my Christmas Lantern Lit walks, about Christmas traditions, that will be taking place through December in Tunbridge Wells, it's amazing how varied the traditions are that we all take for granted, and of course every country celebrates in many different ways - so here's my appeal to you my dear readers - please leave comments with descriptions of traditions that you celebrate at home or in your country. Would be fantastic to hear and to share with all. Thank you!

From Artefacts to Ale

On Thursday, I chose to have a day away from the office, and with no tours on I decided on the luxury of an afternoon and evening trip up to our great capital - London! Only 50 minutes by train from Tunbridge Wells, we really are very lucky here in the South East to be so near, yet so far that we don't feel London's mighty reach.

To be honest, when I go on day trips out, rare as they are now, they tend to be History/Heritage related and this trip was no exception. There was an ulterior motive as well, since I had won via twitter (yes, you can follow me on twitter @cathdiscoversee ) an evening on a pub tour run by a London based guide. Now, that is mixing two of my loves - history and pubs (oh and beer - okay three loves!). Quite appropriate really as that week was the G.B.B.F - Great British Beer Festival at Earls Court. However, for once I was not heading there, but into the City of London!

Before I started the evening's jollities, I headed on foot from Charing Cross, to Lincoln's Inn Fields - the largest public square in London, and home to the Inns of Court and notable barristers. Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers have to join; the others being Inner Temple, Middle Temple and Grey's Inn. Around this square are not only some very fine buildings of architectural note, but also a number of museums - two extremely fascinating. One, which I had visited before and won't talk about in this blog, is the Hunterian Museum within the Royal College of Surgeons - if your thing is to see various pickled animals and anatomical parts in glass jars, then this is the place for you! A place of wonder and of queasiness all in one museum and all free.

Hunterian Museum, London

The other Museum is that of Sir John Soane's - it too is free entry, except on the Saturday Guided Tour at 11am. I have been meaning to go to this museum for a number of years, and should have come sooner! What an amazing place. Very difficult to describe, but trust me, you walk around in wonderment looking at the floor, ceiling, doors, cabinets, and walls that are all covered in pieces of art and antiquities, crammed in every nook and cranny. Soane was a famous architect (1753-1837) who not only designed the building for himself to live in, but to display his collections. In the Painting Room the guide opened up the walls to reveal a courtyard full of treasures, then on the other side of this extremely small room, the walls revealed one of Hogarth's most famous series of paintings, The Rake's Progress!

Sir John Soane Museum, London

I thoroughly recommend going to this museum - but be warned it is very narrow in parts and bags are not allowed inside for obvious reasons; but this matters little when you are staring at a Canaletto, the surviving medieval pieces of the Palace of Westminster, or the Egyptian Pharaoh Seti I's outer sarcophagus!! The first Tuesday of every month they open in the evenings for candlelit tours - something for next time I think! Take a look at www.soane.org to wet your appetite.

After immersing myself in this wonder I then proceeded to the allotted meeting place - Chancery Court Tube Station for the start of the Pub Tour of Olde London Towne. This tour, and many other pub tours of the City, are run by a rather splendid chap called Vic Norman, under the guise of The Dragon and Flagon Pub Tours. I was eagerly awaiting our tour around the six mystery pubs of the City and was not to be disappointed. There were seven of us in total who were on the tour, all from different walks of life, and you didn't have to drink beer on the tour if you didn't want to. However, it was rude for me not to try a few halves here and there, all in the name of research of course! 

We began with a brief history of the City and moved swiftly to our first hidden pub - where once a young Queen Elizabeth I danced around a cherry tree in its courtyard. I don't want to reveal the names of the pubs however, lest it spoil Vic's tours. I urge you instead to go on one yourself. Hopefully this blog will tempt you!

One of the many pubs on The Dragon and Flagon's Pub Tour of Olde London Towne

On through the site of the Strawberry Fair and the haunts of William Shakespeare's characters we went, to a magnificent barrel vaulted ceiling pub dating back to the 16th Century, then swiftly through time to a pub that was in fact positioned between where the shop of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber, and Mrs Lovett's Pie Shop once were!! 1500 years of history in a few hours, time flew by with jokes and fascinating facts. From pubs once the haunt of Charles Dickens to an Art Deco wonder, via a Roman road, it was an enthralling evening. Tired, but very happy I managed to catch the last train back home. What a wonderful day! 

For more information about Vic's London Pub Tours, you can follow him via Facebook - The Dragon and Flagon or contact him directly by calling 07504 977267 or email: vicnorman@postmaster.co.uk

I have certainly felt inspired by Vic's tours for my ale trails!