WEST END THEATREMEETS SHAKESPEAREWITH PORTLAND STAGELO

ND

ON

June 11–20, 2016

From $5,051 per person

PORTLANDSTAGEwhere great theater lives

INCLUDES• Roundtrip air transportation from

Boston to London

• Roundtrip transfers between Portland and Logan airport

• 5 nights’ accommodations Royal Garden Hotel, London

• Four tickets to plays in London with transfers to and from the hotel

• One ticket to Royal Shakespeare Company play in Stratford-upon-Avon

• 3 nights’ accommodations at the Menzies Welcombe Hotel in Stratford-upon-Avon

• Sightseeing as noted in the day-by-day itinerary

• 8 breakfasts, 4 dinners

• Transfers, taxes, and porterage

FOR RESERVATIONS AND INFORMATION CALL AAA TRAVEL AT 866-883-4985 OR THE AAA GROUP DEPT AT 207-780-6957

Saturday, June 11 .......................................Overnight Flight to London

Sunday, June 12 .................................Arrive London Heathrow Airport .......................................................... Transfer to Royal Garden HotelYour hotel for your London stay is the Royal Garden Hotel in the leafy Kensington and Chelsea sections of London. Considered one of the best value 5-star hotels London has to offer, it overlooks Kensington Gardens and Palace, home to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. You will sleep soundly in Royal Garden’s stylish rooms with stunning views of Hyde Park and London’s skyline and you can dine in its award-winning restaurants overlooking Kensington Palace and Gardens. With excellent transport links to famous London attractions, it is only a short walk to the Royal Albert Hall, Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The bustling West End, famous for its theatres, is just 10 minutes away, and the famous shopping districts of Knightsbridge, Notting Hill and Oxford Street are a short distance away. In short, the Royal Garden Hotel is perfectly positioned to experience the London way of life.Tonight we will enjoy a Welcome Dinner at our hotel.Dinner

Monday, June 13This morning you will enjoy a visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum. This museum, affectionately called the “V & A,” is recognized as being the worlds’ greatest repository of applied and decorative art. The museum contains ravishing collections of jewelry, silverware, glass, ceramics, fashion, furniture, books prints and photographs from all over the world. This morning we will concentrate on the Theater and Performance Collection. The collections were founded in the 1920s when a private collector, Gabrielle Enthoven, donated her extensive collection of theatrical designs, memorabilia, books and photographs to the Museum. She continued to add to her collection and worked on it as a museum volunteer until her death in 1950. Since that period the collection has continued to grow and has provided a home for many other significant objects and archives.The afternoon is free.This evening we will enjoy orchestra seats at a London West End play (TBD).Breakfast

Tuesday, June 14 .................................................... Full Day at LeisureYou might want to visit the Theater Museum in Covent Garden. Situated in the heart of Theatreland, the Theater Museum houses the world’s largest and most important collection of material relating to the British stage.

The Theatre Museum’s excellent permanent collections include exhibitions on the development of the British Stage and its stars from Shakespeare to the present day. In addition it includes stage models, costumes, paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, posters, props and audio-visual displays, with reconstructions of early theatres including the 1614 Globe, memorabilia of great actors such as Garrick, Kean and Irving and stunning hand-painted robes from Nijinsky’s “the Rite of Spring.”

This evening we will enjoy orchestra seats at a London West End play (TBD).Breakfast

Wednesday, June 15Our full day of touring will start off with St. Paul’s Cathedral. Built in the 17th century, St. Paul’s Cathedral is one of London’s most famous and most recognizable sights. For more than 1,400 years, a Cathedral dedicated to St. Paul has stood at the highest point in the City. The present Cathedral is the masterpiece of Britain’s most famous architect Sir Christopher Wren. Heroically saved by firefighters when it was bombed during the Second World War, its impressive dome was inspired by St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and rises 118 meters (365 ft.) to the cross at its summit. It was the tallest building in London from 1710 to 1962, and its dome is also among the highest in the world.

After lunch (under own arrangement) we will visit Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Guides will take you on a fascinating tour of the iconic theatre, bringing the space to life with colorful stories of the 1599 Globe, of the reconstruction process in the 1990s, and of how the ‘wooden O’ works today as an imaginative and experimental theatrical space.

We will be provided a fascinating insight to the indoor playhouses of the time of Shakespeare and his contemporaries and the background to the Globe’s ambitious project, from the initial plans to final construction. Find out how indoor playing shaped the writing of Shakespeare, how this unique new space was built and the discoveries we hope to make from indoor performances.

This evening we will enjoy an early dinner at a local restaurant before attending a performance (TBD) at the Open Air Theater in Regent’s Park. The award-winning Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is a London landmark – a firm fixture of summer in the city, providing a cultural hub in the beautiful surroundings of a Royal Park. Its steeply raked auditorium is one of the largest in London with 1,250 seats, yet those who attend say it is one of the most intimate.Breakfast, Dinner

Thursday, June 16 .................................................. Full Day at LeisureYou might want to visit the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Windsor Castle, Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace, The London Bridge Experience, or take a Thames River Cruise.

This evening we will enjoy an early dinner at a local restaurant before attending a West End play (TBD).Breakfast, Dinner

Friday, June 17This morning we bid farewell to London and head for Stonehenge.

Stonehenge is perhaps the world’s most famous prehistoric monument. It was built in several stages: the first monument was an early henge monument, built about 5,000 years ago, and the unique stone circle was erected in the late Neolithic period about 2500 BC. In the early Bronze Age many burial mounds were built nearby. Today, along with Avebury, it forms the heart of a World Heritage Site, with a unique concentration of prehistoric monuments.

After lunch on your own, we’ll head to the charming town of Bath. Set in the rolling countryside of southwest England, Bath-a UNESCO World Heritage Sight– is known for its natural hot springs and 18th-century Georgian architecture. The museum at the site of its original Roman Baths includes The Great Bath, statues and a temple; the facility’s Pump Room serves a popular afternoon tea.

Our hotel for the next three nights is the luxurious Menzies Welcombe Hotel set in an opulent country mansion on 150 landscaped acres in Stratford-upon-Avon.Breakfast

Saturday, June 18This morning we will visit the Cotswolds. The Cotswolds is a rural area known for its rolling hills and grassland harbour thatched medieval villages, churches and stately homes, built of distinctive local yellow limestone. Our first stop is Chipping Campden, one of the loveliest small towns in the Cotswolds and a gilded masterpiece of limestone and craftsmanship. The main street curves in a shallow arc lined with a succession of ancient houses each grafted to the next but each with its own distinctive embellishments. Next we visit Moreton-in-Marsh. Located at the head of the beautiful Evenlode Valley, Moreton in Marsh is a thriving market town, dating back 1000 years to the Saxon era. Its broad High Street is lined with elegant 17th and 18th Century buildings; among them the White Hart Royal, a former manor house in which King Charles I was sheltered during the Civil War. The last stop is Stow-on-the-Wold. With its grand manors and gardens, quaint cottages and quiet backwaters, ancient woodlands and rolling hills, Stow is the quintessential Cotswold town.From the Cotswolds it’s on to Woodstock and the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill. Blenheim Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Center, was designed by John Vanbrugh. The English nation presented the site to John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, in recognition of his victory in 1704 over French and Bavarian troops, a victory which decided the future of the Empire and, in doing so, made him a figure of international importance. The Palace sits within a large walled landscape park, the structure by Vanbrugh overlaid by the designs of Lancelot “Capability” Brown from 1761 onwards.The design and building of the Palace between 1705 and 1722 represented the beginning of a new style of architecture and its landscaped Park, designed by Lancelot “Capability” Brown, is considered “a naturalistic Versailles.” There are numerous options for lunch here and plenty of time to explore the interior of the palace and the magnificent grounds.Dinner is on your own this evening.Breakfast.

Sunday, June 19After breakfast we will visit Shakespeare’s Birthplace, the house he lived in until he was old enough to marry and spend the first five years of family life here with his new wife, Anne Hathaway. Shakespeare’s Birthplace is a fascinating house that offers a tantalizing glimpse into Shakespeare’s early world. We will visit the new exhibition at Shakespeare’s Birthplace which explores the extraordinary story of William Shakespeare, the boy from Stratford-upon-Avon who became a household name all over the world. Discover what sparked his imagination and how he continues to shape our lives today.Featuring an array of Shakespeare memorabilia, contemporary artwork, a copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio and a timeline of Shakespeare’s life, this inspiring exhibition sets the scene for your visit to the place where the story began.We will also see the Shakespeare’s Treasures Exhibition housed within the Shakespeare Centre, where visitors can discover a range of unique and priceless objects from our exclusive collections. The exhibit is refreshed every 6 months to provide as much access as possible to the diverse collection of books, documents and other objects associated with Shakespeare’s work, life and times.We will also enjoy a behind the scenes tour of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, exploring the public and private areas of the theatre. We will discover the origins of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the theatres in Stratford, explore a production in more depth and learn about the theatre making process.This evening we will enjoy dinner at a local restaurant before the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Henry V at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.Breakfast, Dinner

Monday, June 20 ..............................................DepartureTransfer to Heathrow Airport for flight to Boston and transfer to Portland.

Join Portland Stage on a theater extravaganza in England. You will experience the theater gamut

from the West End, to open air, to Shakespeare!

Joining you will be Anita Stewart, Executive & Artistic Director of Portland Stage.

You won’t want to miss the lively post-play theater discussions with Anita.

PORTLANDSTAGEwhere great theater lives