SCHEDULE for MAY 20-31,  2005

Due to public demand, we reorganised the dances to be ECD oriented rather than contra.  Here is what we did:

American dancers who think about traveling to England always wonder: Is the country dancing in England just like ours? And how would I get to dance with the English people?  This trip will give you a partial answer to the first question while supplying the opportunity to do the second. This trip will also take you to some of the most beautiful spots in Southern England.  Along the way we hope to dispel the myth about the food in England.  Every evening (until we get to Chippenham Folk Festival) we will eat at terrific, good value restaurants so that this could well be considered a good food tour as well as a dance tour.

Henry (A Yank who has visited England countless times & been on two year-long Fulbright Teacher Exchanges to England) and Jacqui (A Limey who has lived in England all of her life) will be your host & hostess throughout this trip.  We are retired and spend half the year in England and half the year in the U.S.

What I am about to outline is the basic structure of the twelve day trip.  Photographs of our previous Yanks Meet Limeys tours can be found here (2003) and here (2001).  This trip will be similar to the one in 2003 except that most of the dancing will be the normal mixed program that is done in the clubs in England and we think we will not dance on Wednesday in order to have more time in Oxford.  We expect you will leave the U.S. on Thursday night May 19th & arrive at Gatwick, London Friday morning May 20th.  However, many people on our last tour came earlier or left later.  Scheduling the flight is up to you - only PLEASE double check with me BEFORE you pay for the flight.  We will pick you up at the airport (preferably Gatwick) on Friday and take you to your hotel in South London.

Friday May 20  We expect you will be recovering from your overnight flight so no special event is scheduled until Friday night.  Friday night we will dance at the Beckenham & Croydon Folk Dance Club in South London - dancing mostly ECD - old and new.

Saturday May 21  we will attend the day long Bletchingley Festival, which runs from 10.30am until 10.30pm (with breaks for lunch & dinner).  The principal caller will be Ron Coxall and the dancing will be "ECD", modern English "ECD" and contras in ECD style.

Sunday May 22  After breakfast we travel (approximately 1¹/2 hours) to our next hotel, the comfortable, historic, Wykeham Arms Inn in Winchester.  At around 1 p.m. we will take you on a familiarisation tour of the town of Winchester.  Winchester, home of King Arthur’s Round Table, is a stunningly beautiful city; it was the capital city of England before London took that title.  Sunday night we dance a mixed program (ECD, squares, contras) to the music of a great British band.  A few years ago Jacqui (my wife) invited all her friends to a Contra dance to celebrate her 50th birthday.  It was a huge success.  We repeated it for the first & second Yanks-Limeys tour (great fun each time!) and we hope to repeat it yet again (with a change in style) in 2005.  This way she reckons she need never get to 60!

Monday May 23  Today, since we have no dance in the evening, we will spend a long, leisurely day touring Salisbury & Stonehenge.  Salisbury Cathedral can be seen from miles away and the guided tour of the Cathedral will include a view from the top of the Cathedral tower.  I took that tour years ago and never forgot it.  When I repeated that tour with the last Yanks-Limeys group I found it even more riveting than the first time.  We will have dinner in Salisbury before we head to Stonehenge which is close by.   We must arrive after 6:30 p.m.so that we will be allowed inside the fence that was put up a decade or so ago to protect this incredibly ancient awe-inspiring stone circle.  Our guide has some VERY interesting and humorous observations on the history of the Stones.

Tuesday May 24  Our experience is that by Tuesday you will want some time to yourselves, so we have designated it "Free Time" - time to explore Winchester on your own, do laundry (if you need to), go to the great quality thrift stores there.  Also, Winchester Tourist Office and the wonderful Cathedral have many guided tours which we will be happy to pay for if you would like to do that.  Tuesday night we will join the local Dance Club in Bedhampton (nr. Havant) where they dance mostly ECD - old and new.

Wednesday May 25  Our day- and night-time destination is Oxford, one of the most beautiful university towns in the world.  Our past experience suggests that we need more time in this city than is possible if we try to attend an evening dance.  During the day we will have our own guided tour which can include some of the colleges (only open in the late afternoons).    The evening will be yours to do as you wish (The Wykeham Arms is a very nice typical English Pub) or you can come to our wonderful local (Winchester) Scottish dance class with us if you wish.

Thursday May 26  We leave The Wykeham Arms in Winchester and head for our hotel in Chippenham.   The Angel is the best hotel in town and it is in the very center of town, right in the middle of the Folk Festival.  On the way to Chippenham we will visit Lacock, a lovely, timeless English Village and visit its museum and monastery.  Thursday night, the night before Chippenham Folk Festival begins, we will dance in the elegant Chippenham Town Hall.  I have asked a group of “locals” to dance in period costumes so the dances that night will be period English Country Dances.  You need not bring “Period attire” but a nice long dress or skirt might be appropriate.

Friday May 27  We will visit Bath, home of Roman Baths, the Pump Room, The Circle, The Crescent.  Bath claims to be one of the most visited places in the world.  To give you yet another “British experience” we will go there by train (round trip ticket supplied by us).  Once there we will go on a guided tour and then you can wander around on your own, taking the train back to Chippenham at your leisure.

Friday night May 27 through Monday night May 30 you will be a part of Chippenham Folk Festival, one of the best Folk Festivals in Britain.  Chippenham Folk Festival often has contra sessions every day and contra dances every evening, but that is only a small part, a very small part, of what Chippenham has to offer.  Before noon on the first Saturday of the Festival, you can choose any one of 25 workshops.  Another 32 workshops are available between noon and 5p.m.  What kind of workshops?  ECD, Rapper, Squares, Playford, Irish Sets, Clogging, Circus skills, Junior Macrame, Concertina, Border Morris, Song Shop, Fiddle Workshops, Contra Dances “Off the Net,” Irish Music, Riverside Ceilidh, Story Telling.  I can’t possibly list all the workshops, but clearly there is something for everyone - and I haven’t even mentioned the pub sessions for musicians & for singers and the concerts and dance displays in the Arena and elsewhere.

At Chippenham the standard of dancing is high, the callers are among the best in England, and the bands are from England, the Continent and, this year, Cis Hinkle and KGB from the U.S.A.  No dance camp in America can match the variety of dance forms offered.  The whole operation dwarfs almost any weekend in America.  The Festival takes over the whole town.

I could go on and on about Chippenham.  Clearly a great deal is there to do.  You can spectate, you can dance, you can learn to play an instrument, you can join a singers or a musicians jam.  You can watch Morris Dancers all weekend; you can shop for instruments and clothing; you can swim in the pool (there is even a dance in the pool: an “Aqueilidh”); you can dance until past midnight.

Chippenham is a very small town.  We want all of you to be housed in town so you can walk to all events & retire to your lodging in between - if you wish.  The Angel Hotel will give you breakfast but once you get to Chippenham you are on your own for lunch & dinner.  There are many restaurants in town and there is an “on-site” food  tent (“Chez Nous”) which serves good, inexpensive food.  In the past, we have eaten all our meals there and made many friends at their long tables.

Tuesday May 31, after breakfast, we will take you to London for your return flight to the U.S.  If you plan to stay longer I will help you find lodging if you’d like me to.