Past Tours
A Writer’s Britain
October 2022
This is a private tour for Western Seminary (Holland, MI) and therefore not open to others. I am listing it to give an idea of the variety of tours offered.
We start with a walk in the city of Bobby Burns, starting at the hill top castle, down the Royal Mile, past John Knox’s home to Holyrood Palace. The next morning is free in Edinburgh before a departure for the tidal island of Lindisfarne. Also known as Holy Island, it is a major site for the transplantation of Celtic Christianity into northern England. We walk the island in the footsteps of Aidan and Cuthbert.
After the following morning on Lindisfarne, we head to Durham and the greatest of the Romanesque cathedrals, burial place of Cuthbert and the great historian of English Christianity—Bede. Then on to the Lake District.
We have an extended stay in the Lake District—on Derwentwater near the small town of Keswick—for hiking, boating, and peaceful beauty. This area is the home of the Romantic poets and we pay a visit to nearby Dove Cottage, home of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, and their friend Samuel Coleridge.
From the Lake District we head south, stopping in Haworth on the moors to visit the parsonage in which the Bronte sisters lived and wrote. Then on to Shakespeare’s Stratford for a play and the night. The next day we go to Oxford of the golden spires, home of great thinkers and great writers. We tour C.S. Lewis’ home (the Kilns) and his and Tolkien’s graves and commence an Inklings walk of places associated with that group of influential writers. The next morning—Sunday—folks have many rich options to attend a church of their choice, and a mostly free afternoon will include a visit to Lewis’ Magdalen College.
After a free morning in Oxford the next day, we head to London, with an optional walk of central London and a final farewell dinner together.
Irish Saint and Poets: From Celtic Christianity to C.S. Lewis
September – October 2021
Ireland is an ancient land known for green hills, great writers, music, turbulent politics, and a distinctive expression of the Christian faith. This tour touches on all of these and more.
Starting in Dublin, we explore the beginning of Celtic Christianity (including a look at the Book of Kells) and touch on the writing of James Joyce and W.B. Yeats. We then move to St. Kevin’s beautiful valley of Glendalough, with it monastic ruins and twin lakes, followed by travel west across the country, with a stop at St Brigit’s Kildare and Yeats’ tower at Thoor Ballylee, staying near the magnificent Cliffs of Moher.
Then north to Yeats country for an exploration of Sligo. Heading further north still, we visit C.S. Lewis’s Dunluce Castle (a likely model for Cair Paravel in Narnia), and the natural wonder of the Giant’s Causeway, with a stop in the hometown of the poet Seamus Heaney.
In Belfast we tour Lewis sites and the excellent Titanic museum. From there we return to Dublin, with stops in the Mourne Mountains associated with Narnia, the great Celtic crosses of Monasterboice, and possibly the Hill of Slane where St Patrick confronted the druids.
Castles, Cathedrals, and Country Houses (with Gardens) of England and Scotland
September 26 – October 8, 2018
A tour up the east coast of the United Kingdom, from Canterbury to the Scottish Highlands, exploring aspects of the culture and history of England and Scotland through the intersection of politics, religion, and social class, with an emphasis on the introduction of Christianity to this part of the world.
C.S. Lewis, Tolkien and Friends: A Lightly Literary Tour of Ireland and England
May 25 – June 4, 2017
A tour of the United Kingdom of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and the Inklings—that famous gathering of Christian writers who are among the most influential authors of our time.
20th Century France: Artist, Writers and War
June 21 – July 1, 2016
An exploration of the modernist writers and artists of early 20th-century Paris, along with the two world wars that bracketed the period.
A Lightly Literary New England Leaf Tour
October 10-19, 2014
A 10 day tour of New England with an emphasis on great American Writers (Dickinson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville) and great fall colors.
Following the Saints: A Celtic Christianity Tour
September 7-21, 2013
A two-week tour of Celtic Christian sites in Ireland, Scotland, and northern England. Begins in Dublin and ends in Edinburgh. This tour was repeated in October of 2015.
England Term Reunion Tour
June 14-27, 2012
For those who have participated in any Bethel University England Term semester or Interim “Travel Writing” course since 1979. A thirteen-day tour (with a departure point at 11 days) that will include some of the familiar places from past tours, plus something new.
C.S. Lewis, Tolkien and Inklings Tour
September 5-12, 2012
A seven-day tour of Oxford, the Cotswolds, Stratford, and Wales, with an emphasis on the lives and works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.