2024 Adventure #2: Romantic Places/Romantic Poems
Adventures in Mind is an educational travel program for mature adults. It will appeal to life-long learners who are inquisitive, open-minded and looking beyond the usual tourist experience. It is open to free spirits of all ages. For all tours, a level of physical and mental fitness is highly advisable; curiosity and a sense of community are essential!
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Location:
England’s Lake District
Dates (to be confirmed):
Sept 12 - Oct 4, 2024 (incl. dates of travel to and from England)
Group Leaders:
Steve Lane and Deborah Lane
This year Adventures in Mind is offering Romantic Places/Romantic Poems – an adventure for both Mind and Body.
The tour is located in the English Lake District, providing ample opportunity for walks of varying lengths and fitness levels in order that we may more fully appreciate the beauty of this area, its agricultural and industrial roots, and its influence on numerous writers, artists, and tourists.
Our educational focus includes several of the English Romantic poets (for instance William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey), but also later writers like John Ruskin and Beatrix Potter.
Walks of varying lengths and difficulty are offered to supplement the seminars and tours of various sites. No special equipment is needed, just the usual walking gear as for home: proper footwear, raingear, a hiking pole or two (if desired), day pack, water bottle, etc. Several of the walks can be shortened by the extensive bus service, as well as by some of the boat launch service on a couple of the lakes.
Group Leaders
Steve Lane, Ph.D., is a retired English professor and academic administrator whose doctoral work was in the area of the Romantic poets, with a dissertation on William Wordsworth. As a faculty member at Vancouver Island University (VIU), Steve taught numerous survey courses (British and American literature) and delivered upper-level courses on Romantic Poetry and Poetics and The Gothic. Specific to this tour combining literary exploration with rambling related to the works, he has presented papers on William Blake, William Wordsworth, and Lord Byron at international conferences, and hiked in England, France, and Greece. Since retiring in 2019, Steve keeps busy with a number of courses for Mid Island Elder College, and kept fit with daily walks/ hikes.
Deborah Lane is a retired public servant who is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Liberal Studies through Simon Fraser University. Her interests in literature and history include the Bronte sisters and exploring the relationship between coal miners on Vancouver Island and those in Cumberland in the English Lake District. Deborah has done several multi-day hikes in the UK, including Hadrian’s Wall, the Cleveland Way, the West Highland Way, and the Coast-to-Coast Walk. She has also hiked in France and Greece.
Tentative Itinerary
Day 0
Leave Canada
Day 1
Arrive Manchester Airport. Stay one night in Hotel.
Day 2
Arrive Keswick. Settle in. Group dinner. Orientation.
Seminar: Wordsworth’s Guide and early tourism
Day 3
Free day. (market day?)
Seminar: Pre-historic and Roman Cumbria
Day 4
Walk to Castlerigg Stone Circle and back
Seminar: Coleridge, Southey, and the Pantisocracy project; the poet laureate
Day 5
Boat and hike around Derwentwater. Lodore Falls
(see Southey poem)
Day 6
Day trip to Cockermouth. Wordsworth House (Wordsworth birth home) – National Trust
Day 7
Hike some or all of Cat Bells
Seminar: Christabel and the Gothic
Day 8
Bus to Honister Slate Mine
Hike to Rosthwaite and take bus back
Day 9
Boat to landing for Ashness Bridge and Walla Crag
Seminar: Dorothy’s Journals
Day 10
Free day
Day 11
Free day. (Helvellyn from Thirlmere?)
Day 12
Complete Derwentwater Loop from Lodore back to Keswick.
Seminar: Wordsworth’s “Michael”.
Day 13
Walk to Crosthwaite Church to see Southey’s grave.
Day 14
Walk Latrigg
Seminar: Revolutionary poetics and the younger Romantics: Shelley, Keats
Day 15
Walk Newlands Valley
Day 16
To Ambleside. Settle in. Groceries.
Seminar: the Wordsworth Circle (especially William, Dorothy, and John)
Day 17
To Grasmere. Group tour of Dove Cottage. St. Oswald’s church.
Day 18
Free day. (Walk Loughrigg and Easedale Tarn loop, caves)
Day 19
To Hawkshead (Wordsworth’s school). Hike around Hawkshead
Seminar: Landscape and the picturesque
Day 20
Walk to Rydal Mount. Explore Wordsworth’s last home. Walk back.
Seminar: review Wordsworth’s poem on the death of his brother John
Day 21
To Grasmere - walk Grisedale Valley to Brothers Parting Stone and back. (STRENUOUS)
Day 22
To Hill Top (Beatrix Potter house – National Trust). Bus 525 Mountain Goat from Windermere Ferry. Group dinner.
Day 23
Leave Lake District. Travel to Hotel at Manchester Airport.
Day 24
Travel Home
Presentations and discussions will be scheduled as required.
Tentative Reading List
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Christabel; “Dejection: an Ode”; “The Pains of Sleep”; “Kubla Khan”; “To William Wordsworth”
Robert Southey, lyric poems; The Three Bears
William Wordsworth, excerpts from his Guide to the Lakes; excerpts from The Prelude dealing with his childhood; “Tintern Abbey”; “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”; “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”; “Michael”; “In Memory of My Brother, John Wordsworth, Commander of the E. I. Company’s Ship, The Earl Of Abergavenny, in which He Perished by Calamitous Shipwreck, Feb. 6th, 1805”
Dorothy Wordsworth, excerpts from Journals
Percy Bysshe Shelley, “To Wordsworth”
Thomas De Quincey, excerpts from Confessions of an Opium Eater
Beatrix Potter, Jemima Puddleduck
Inclusive Packages
Package costs include program overheads, accommodation, all program-related travel within the Lake District, tourist guides, educational materials, and admissions to cultural sites and events. Participants must arrange their own air travel to England and have adequate travel insurance, including medical. Food is not included, but accommodation is in houses or apartments which have kitchens, so that food costs are minimal.
Program Fee: $4,995 CAD
(Double Occupancy)
Shared Accommodation
Shared Accommodation (two people sharing a double or twin bedroom): included in program fee.
Single Supplement: $1,000