 | Getting Ready to Hop Across the Big Pondposted by TeaHouseTimes Admin, ADVERTISER TEA RELATED PRODUCTSMonday, October 26th 2009 @ 11:59 AM |
Getting Ready to Hop Across the Big Pond by Patty Suchy
I’m getting ready to travel again on an adventure I’ve put together for the Royal-tea Club, www.theroyal-teaclub.org This club was formed over five years ago and currently has over 300 members in Pennsylvania and Maryland (with a few additional members in neighboring states). And their main purpose is to just get together at various tea rooms to enjoy the pleasures of tea. I developed for the club a tea tour to the Cotswolds and London a few years ago and this year they wanted to go back to see more of the British Isles. Well, they are certainly going to get to do that on the twelve nights Princess Cruise of the British Isles. In their travels they will be visiting England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Guernsey and LeHavre France -- along with a three night pre-cruise stay in London.
In preparing my groups for their travels, I want to make sure they have enough background to enjoy their journey. In this case, this group wants to know about the tea related possibilities in the ports we’ll be visiting. I have a checklist of things to look at in preparing the information to share:
1. What does Princess offer on this cruise? 2. What ship excursions include tea related activities? 3. What books offer ideas of places to consider in the various ports? 4. What websites offer details on afternoon teas in the various ports?
So I started going through the above questions. Not only is this something that both you and I could do if we were just traveling by ourselves, but answering the questions is a great way for a group to get further excited about the trip and help them consider all the possibilities - in this case tea possibilities. So here are the answers I came up with:
1. Princess does offer daily afternoon tea on board the ship. And from the looks of it, it should be a fairly nice tea, held in one of the main dining rooms. I have no doubt that the tea delicacies will live up to the Princess standards of excellence.
2. And believe it or not, there are some excursions offered on this cruise that involve aspects of tea. While in the port of Liverpool, there is an excursion to the Wedgwood factory which is a perfect way to see how some of the best tea ware is made. In Glasgow, one can go on a Charles Rennie McIntosh tour where after seeing this famous architect and designer’s home, one will have a chance for tea and shortbread in the well known Willow Tea Room. And then there is the one I’ll be participating in at our port in Inverness. I’m going to Foulis Castle, which has been the seat to the Munro clan for over 700 years. Current Chieftain Munro and his mother will take us on a private guided tour of the castle and the gardens before we partake in afternoon tea in their dining room. In a future column, I’ll let you know how this goes.
3. Now I have tons of books that I’ve brought back from past trips to the United Kingdom. And some of these are available at bookstores and Amazon.com. Of course one can do no better than the Tea in the City guides Jane Pettigrew has written on London and Paris (yes this cruise has one stop in France with a chance to go to Paris). But even our own Margaret Thornby’s Guide to Tea Rooms of Britain offers some unique tea room finds. Bruce Richardson has also penned The Great Tea Rooms of Britain which provides wonderful photos and was helpful for London. If you do travel to Great Britain always be on the lookout for The Tea Council’s Best Tea Places in Britain as well as the series of Teapot Trails. As a matter of fact you can sometimes even find these as a used book on Amazon.com. Both of these series of books are valuable sources for finding tea places. Another book source that I have is Where to Take Tea - A Guide to Britain’s Best Tearooms by Susan Cohen.
4. The internet! Listing this last is not meant to imply that you use this last in your preparations. Probably, it should be your first starting point - that is if you have internet access (which you should be able to get at most libraries if you don’t have it at home). First of all, you can search the tourist boards. For this trip, the biggest help from tourist boards came for our three night stay in London -- www.visitlondon.com; http://golondon.about.com/od/afternoontea/tp/AfternoonTeaLondon.htm and http://britishfood.about.com/od/diningdrinkingtradition/a/Tea.htm And then for each of the ports, I typed ‘afternoon tea’ into a search engine (usually Google). There were always some interesting finds. How else would I have known about Loopy Lorna’s Tea House in Edinburgh, or Elliot’s Afternoon Tea in the Apex Waterloo Place Hotel - Edinburgh, where you can enjoy a Whiskey Afternoon Tea. Of course you’ll also get back in your searches a list of hotels that offer wonderful afternoon teas. Don’t overlook hotels. Although some of these teas can be a bit pricier, they are usually worth the money for the ambience of the venue, the service and the unique foods and teas.
So there you have it. Consider taking a trip with your special friends from a tea room or other group. There are so many places to choose from in the world. And you can make the event even more special by following some of the pointers listed above. Let The Tea House Times know of any special tours you plan.
~written by Patty Suchy - founder of Novel Explorations, Where Fiction and Travel Merge. Dedicated to providing unique travel learning experiences. For further details about creating a tea tour for your tearoom or a group of friends. Visit www.novelexplorations.com
From The Tea House Times SeptOct2009 issue:
