A CITY & VILLAGE TOURS BRAND NEW DAYTRIP

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A SUFFOLK SYMPHONY

This is a good stand alone day or a very entertaining follow up for groups who have enjoyed our Suffolk Coastal Tour giving, as it does, time to really explore the coastal town of Aldeburgh along with visits to Snape Maltings and Sir Benjamin Britten’s beloved Red House. The theme carried through the day is the life and work of the composer but a particular interest in Britten is not essential to the enjoyment of the day but it gives us a splendid hook to discover some very beautiful places. Throughout the whole day you are in the company of an expert and entertaining Blue Badge guide.

We’ll begin at Snape Maltings at 10.30am for morning refreshments (included). In the 1960s Britten and his partner the tenor Peter Pears fell in love with this striking complex of brick and slate buildings and within the largest malthouse they created one of the finest concert halls in the world. Today this is an artistic haven set against a breathtaking natural backdrop of reeds, mashes, sea and big, big skies. We’ll visit the concert hall which is used year round and which forms the very heart of the annual Aldeburgh Festival.

From Snape we head by coach to Aldeburgh where pastel-coloured Victorian holiday villas line the promenade and fishermen still sell their daily catch from huts on the pebbled beach. We’re here for free time to buy lunch - there’s a good selection to choose from or bring a packed lunch. We also take in two wonderful works of art that commemorate the life and work of Benjamin Britten: Maggi Hambling’s twelve foot tall scallop on the beach and the John Piper window in the local church where Britten and Pears are buried.

In the afternoon we visit the house that Britten and Pears shared for the last two decades of their lives. The home has been laid out as a charmingly informal snapshot of life at Snape in the mid sixties and is as though the pair had just stepped out for a moment. Visit Britten’s studio created from a hayloft where he wrote the War Requiem and the elegant library housed in an old barn.

You could even tap a croquet ball or two in the gardens before we come together for a cup of tea (included) getting us ready to start the drive home at 4.45pm.