Flowers, Frocks & Botanical Fantasies Tour Itinerary

Garden lovers put down your dandelion diggers and rejoice! The Grand Tour Itinerary is finally here.

I know some of you doubted that the Flowers, Frocks & Botanical Fantasies Tour would never bloom, and admittedly planning it all was harder than growing an Amorphophallus titanum. At times I feel like Derek Jarman trying to nurture tulips in the microclimate of the Dungeness nuclear power plant. But gardeners are nothing if not tenacious and I am no exception. After a month of frustrating glitches, I finally flew to London to sort it all out. (And Paris too; but that tour’s coming later.) I also wanted to ensure that the places we saw were worth showing you. Some places were as beautiful as I remember when I lived here. Others, such as the Garden Museum and the Geffrye, weren't. The poor performers have since been dead-headed from The List. Other places, meanwhile – including one of the Cotswolds' most beautiful restaurants – have been included. It's shaping up to be a beautiful tour.

So I'd like to say welcome to the Flowers, Frocks & Horticultural Fantasies Tour; a carefully cultivated tour of gorgeous gardenalia for leaf lovers young and old, whether you're from Sydney or Seattle. We'll be seeing extraordinary gardens, great garden stores, and enchanting horticultural corners of the country. I do hope you'll all be pleased. Enjoy! I hope it's a summer you’ll remember for years.

Also, this tour is Land Content only. You are welcome to organise your own flights from the US or Australia using your preferred agent, or our agent, or even your frequent flyer points. (Our agent can help find you the best fares.) Finally, this is an abbreviated itinerary and price. Only those who have emailed me to provide their contact details will be sent the full itinerary. A comprehensive PDF brochure will be emailed out early next week, when I'm back in Australia. Also, numbers are strictly limited to 20-30 on this tour. However, if we fill the first, we can run a second in June. (See below for details.)  I'm very much look forward to seeing you all. I think it's going to be a really lovely week in the English countryside. Don't forget, 2013 marks the 100th Anniversary of Chelsea so if you have never been to this show before, make this the year!

Also, I must apologise for the delay in posting. My SLR camera was stolen off my shoulder by a little Dickensian thief on Bond Street late this week. Which has reminded me to include a little warning about safety measures in our brochure.)

THE 100TH CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW: 

A WEEK OF HORTICULTURAL DELIGHTS

May 21 - 29

The Flowers, Frocks and Horticultural Fantasies Tour  is an aesthetic feast for the senses. A horticultural symphony of scent, stem and splendour, it will inspire, delight and astound. It may even motivate you to cultivate your own small patch of gardening paradise. The gardens selected have been chosen for their inspirational and innovative designs. Some are famous National Trust properties that every gardener should see in their lifetime, others are private homes. However, they are all relatively intimate and small in scale so that you can relate to them, and perhaps even take ideas from their memorable planting schemes.

We will be visiting lots of splendid gardens, having lots of laughs, making lovely new friends, taking lots of photographs, and generally having a wonderful time.

Day One – Tuesday 21. Arrival in London and transfer to lovely South Kensington hotel*. Settle in before meeting up with everyone for welcome cocktails and a delicious casual dinner nearby at one of London's loveliest small restaurants (above), which only serves seasonal produce and has been dubbed "a piece of country in the city".

Note: If anybody checks in early, I shall take you to a gorgeous little bookshop that sells lovely second-hand design, garden and other books for very cheap. And we'll have a little coffee and cake too.

*The hotels are subject to availability. We are still negotiating a price with the London hotel, as London is terrifyingly expensive, but I can assure you that you will be pleased. The hotels and restaurants chosen have all been selected for either their fondness of flowers, their charming design, or their proximity to sights.

Day Two – Wednesday May 22. We'll catch the tube to Sloane Square for a special half-hour guided tour of the Chelsea In Bloom boutiques, part of this special week of horticultural-themed displays. Then we'll visit the 'The Gardener's Garden', the beautifully serene Chelsea Physic Garden. Founded in 1673 as the Apothecaries' Garden for the purpose of training apprentices in identifying plants, it's London's oldest botanic garden, and features a new Garden of Edible and Useful Plants, plus more than 5,000 different edible, useful, medicinal and historical plants, all in beds with signs displaying their use. There's also a lovely terrace cafe here for brunch if you need refreshments. {See funny review of cafe here} {Note: Only certain meals are included in tour price as everyone has different preferences, and we don't want you paying for someone else's addiction to Chateau Lafite!}

Then we head to the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the fantastic galleries of interior design, fashion, prints, architecture and other aesthetic delights that are contained within. Some of you, like me, will love getting lost in the V&A, as there are always amazing things to discover, such as this room-sized tapestry of a formal country garden (above). Many of the rooms have been taken, lock, stock and gilded panelling, from grand estates and put back together inside the museum. You may be here all day!  {There's a great cafe here too, the William Morris Room, which gardeners will love. It's good for a little pick-me-up cuppa.}

Those who finish with the V&A in under an hour or two can come with me to explore one of London's most surprising little villages, a secret enclave a few steps from the V&A that few people realise exists. There are also secrets boutiques in this village that sell Chanel, Valentino and such for amazing prices. You may even find a hat to wear to Chelsea Flower Show tomorrow, such as this splendid one, from a previous show.

And if you have any energy left at 4pm, you can wander to Harrods for some shopping, or, if you're still garden-hungry, I'll take you  to here, London's Secret Walled Garden. (NB Some people may be fitter than others, and we have to accommodate all levels of energy. Those who tire early are welcome to return to the hotel for a nanna nap.)

The Secret Walled Garden is where Diana used to retreat when she wanted to think. Next to it is one of the most magical royal orangeries in London, which also serves high tea, which we might need at this stage. It was originally designed as a royal greenhouse for Queen Anne to potter around in and is rather grand. I love it.

In the evening, we'll have a classic English pub dinner at a beautifully decorated 'gastro pub' around the corner from our hotel. (Not included in price, but it's very cheap.}

Day Three – Thursday May 23. This entire day is dedicated to the wonder that is the Chelsea Flower Show. Chelsea is the 'catwalk' of the garden shows: the place where garden suppliers offer their newest plants and products. The new roses are always amazing here. We'll catch the tube to Sloane Square (the easiest way to get around London), and then wander down. Once inside, you will be able to wander the show at your leisure. (Tickets for all gardens included in price.) You can either return to the hotel with me at an allocated time, or use the map we'll supply you with to wander back by foot, exploring the beautiful streets of Chelsea on your own. (NB These are the only two days we use public transport or foot – which is the best way to see London. The rest of the time we'll have our own chartered coach.)

Day Four – Friday May 24. A very special day. We'll be heading by our own private coach to the grandeur of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew in today. If you haven't seen Kew, you should at least once in your life. The Victorian Palm House (above) is extraordinary. Then we'll be going to the famous Petersham Nurseries, an enchanting cafe and garden store that was awarded a Michelin star under Skye Gyngell and is now run by noted Australian chef and author Greg Malouf. Full of great things to buy, it's a cafe inside a greenhouse. You'll love it!

For dinner, we'll go to a nearby French restaurant, or this hotel (above), which is an eye-opener indeed.

Day Five – Saturday May 25. We pack up and head off for two days in the charming Cotswolds, transported in our private coach. On the way, we'll stop in two of the prettiest villages in England, the second of which Prince Charles used as the spot to propose to Diana. Then it's onto Hidcote, which is quite possibly one of  the loveliest gardens in England, next to Sissinghurst. An Arts & Crafts masterpiece created by the horticulturalist Major Lawrence Johnston, it has inspired everyone from Monty Don to Stella McCartney, who modelled her own country estate on it.

Then we head to the much-talked-about Daylesford Organic Farm Shop, which isn't really a farm shop at all but a very swish estate. If we're lucky, we may even see the Kitchen Garden that won a medal at Chelsea.  (It depends if any produce has been planted.)

On the way back, we'll have dinner at one of England's prettiest country inns (above), which I notice lots of magazines are now featuring.

Then it's to bed at a fabulous Cotswolds hotel! (Can't reveal here: don't want others booking it out before us.)

Day Six – Sunday May 26. Another special day of horticultural heaven. We're stopping at Barnsley House today, Rosemary Verey's former home and garden. I met her once. It was one of the highlights of my life in London. Unfortunately, we can't stay, as there's not enough rooms, but a wander around is enough inspiration, I promise. We'll also see the famous kitchen garden (above) that inspired the modern revival in parterre potagers.

Then it's off to the garden that Rosemary helped design – Prince Charles' Highgrove Estate.

Now tickets to Highgrove depend on when it's open (and when HRH is in residence), so the dates may be switched depending on availability. But we'll see the Black and White Garden, the beautiful, beautiful topiary terrace and all of the other royal borders.

Then it's back to the hotel, where we'll have dinner at the hotel before taking our weary feet to bed.

Day Seven – Monday May 27. We pack up our wellies and our luggage and head south today, stopping at one of the Cotswold's most glorious florists on the way. Then we head to another of my favourite English villages, perhaps my very favourite. The settings for the films, Doctor Doolittle and War House (Steven Spielberg selected it as "the perfect English village'), this is a truly sweet place that will fill your camera up with photos! There will an opportunity to have a bite to eat here, as there is a pub and shops to buy produce for lunch.

Then it's off to the glamour of one of the world's most talked-about places, Highclere Castle, the home of Downton Abbey. Note: Opening is subject to filming, and ticket availability as it's often sold out. If Highclere is closed for filming, we'll stop at another beautiful estate or village noted for its gardens.

Then we check into one of the most stylish little inns in the south for two nights, decorated by a former magazine editor who's now making her mark on the design world. It even has its own kitchen garden.

Day Eight – Tuesday May 28. We drive to the home of one of my favourite men today – Winston Churchill. His beloved kitchen garden at his country house 'Chartwell' is beautiful. Then it's off to Charleston, a delightful cottage and garden that was the country escape of those writers, painters and intellectuals known as the Bloomsbury group. In the afternoon, we'll have free time to wander around the refreshing beach and beautiful historic streets of Hastings Old Town, where you can grab a bite to eat at your leisure. Then we'll return to our home to have dinner, dining on the hotel's own home-grown produce.

Day Nine – Wednesday May 29. We save the best until last! After we've packed up, we head to Kent, and the gloriousness that is this corner of the world in spring. We also visit what has become arguably the most famous garden in the world: Sissinghurst. Its creator Vita Sackville-West once described it as: "Profusion, even extravagance and exuberance within the confines of the utmost linear severity", but it's far more than that. It's a truly inspirational combination of Harold Nicholson's meticulous design and Vita's romantic notions: the classicist and the poet. The result is an extraordinary garden that blends strict formal borders and joyous planting schemes. Many gardens want to be Sissinghurst when they grow up, but sadly, few of us have a spare crumbling 16th-century brick wall hanging about. Nevertheless, Sissinghurst has been the inspiration for thousands of gardens in the world. The White Garden. The Walled Garden. The Writer's Tower. The Nuttery. The Lime Walk. The Wild Garden. It's all here. And it's exquisite. And the roses are some of the most beautiful in the world. Vita Sackville-West planted hundreds in every form and also helped return some lost roses to cultivation. Vita, we'll be quietly thanking you as we wander around the borders.

Then we head to another grand garden, Great Dixter, home of the noted garden writer and television presenter Christopher Lloyd. Restored in 1910 by the English architect Edwin Lutyens (who also designed the gardens), it's comprised of a series of small gardens including a fine topiary garden, a rose garden, a magnificent herbaceous border, and a kitchen garden, plus a large orchard with many pockets of wild flowers. A joy to visit.

Finally, as we wind our way back to London we'll stop by a sublime private garden by a famous Australian plantswoman, who was previously responsible for one of Australia's most loved gardens in the Southern Highlands, Kennerton Green. Her new garden, which is private, is certain to inspire, with its chic garden rooms and Chinoiserie chicken coop. (Like Highgrove, this garden is only open on certain days, so the itinerary may be switched to accommodate availability.)

At the end of Wednesday we arrive back in London, tired but happy. From here, you can either organise a flight home or your own accommodation for that evening and beyond. You may wish to stay in your preferred hotel, or we can recommend some elegant boutique hotels, such as those in the Firmdale Group. (Unfortunately, we can't stay at Firmdale, as they're too small to accept group bookings.) I would suggest book-ending the tour with a few days in London. You'll love exploring the city on your own, and I'm going to give everyone a booklet of great little places to see.

Included in the tour price:
All hotels and accommodation for 8 nights, including private bath/shower (not the final Wednesday night), breakfast daily, deluxe private motorcoach transportation, a full time driver (and his accommodation, as we need to ensure he's well rested for our safety), a tour leader or two, two dinners, all garden entrance tickets, and all taxes (Value Added Tax VAT). 

Not included: Meals (apart from two dinners). This was the only way we could keep the cost down. Also, everyone has different dietary preferences (and alcoholic ones!). It's only fair that people pay for what they'd like to eat and not other's expensive tastes.

Price:

A$3999.00 per person, on a twin/double share basis
*Single supplement would be additional. (If you're single, let us know, and we can pair you up with another single. It will make the cost of the tour cheaper.)

Details will emailed out in a formal brochure next week to all those 80 or 90 people who expressed interest. I do hope you can come with us!

London For The Frugalist

Our family loves to travel. Our family also loves to save money. Normally, these two things aren't compatible but our family, who are firm frugalists, have worked out ways to do to it. My mother can offer a dozen tips on how to traverse the world for very little. My father could probably add in a dozen more. And my partner, who is thriftier than a prisoner, could just about circle the world on the smell of an oily rag.

I have to confess that I'm not as talented at Traversing The World On $1 A Day as my Frugalist Family. But I'm learning. In fact, this week, I've been managing on a budget of around 20 pounds a day, excluding hotels. And just look at the glorious sights I've seen...

The just-opened Tim Walker exhibition of fashion photographs at Somerset House. One of the most magical photography exhibitions I've ever seen. Even the ways the images were displayed were ingenious. 

Just beautiful. And completely free.

The newly renovated Fashion Galleries at the V&A Museum. A beautiful, inspirational, memorable, utterly joyous exhibition of frocks, shoes, ballgowns, day dresses and other sartorial finery from the late 17th century to the turn of the century. 

Also completely free. 

(There were also two other magnificent exhibitions: Ballgowns: British Glamour Since 1950 and Hollywood Costume, which cost a small fortune, but I think the Fashion Galleries were better.)

The fabulous stores of London's arcades. Most travellers know about Regent Street, and Bond Street, and Oxford Street. But I think the arcades are far more interesting. Just look at the two gorgeous gentleman I saw ambling along Burlington Arcade, above. 

Window shopping – always free.

The glorious autumn leaves of Kensington Gardens. Gloriously free.

The beautiful fabric shops of Soho. If you love fabric, these stores are like walking into textile heaven. And so cheap. The linens are less than 10 pounds. 

Not free, but oh, so cheap.

The 'intimate' rooms at Firmdale Hotels. If you're travelling alone and you can forgo a Queen bed for a large three-quarter-sized one, you can find great rates at Firmdale Hotels' famously glamorous urban retreats. They often reduce these rooms, dubbed 'single' rooms, to spectacularly low rates. I often stay at Number Sixteen for just 120 pounds. This was my room at the new Dorset Square Hotel. The really lovely thing, apart from the great price, is the fact that they face great views. Number Sixteen's single rooms have their own terrace. Dorset Square's face the park opposite. Bliss. (PS Look at Dorset Square's cute door handles – made from cricket balls!)

A Postcard From Paris

Life's funny sometimes, isn't it? A fortnight ago, I was on top of Hanging Rock with a spiritual shaman from Java (just saying that strange sentence makes me laugh), trying to 'tap' into the history and spirits of that mystical, mythical, magical place for the book I've been writing about the novel Picnic at Hanging Rock. (I use the word 'tap' quite literally, as he kept doing that with his hands and feet, eventually ascertaining that the rock was very, very hollow. And yes, hearing what he said about the place was very moving.)

A few days later, having come to a Hanging Rock-style impasse on another book about Paris (also in the works), for which I desperately needed more photographs, I packed a carry-on bag, found a cheap flight with Singapore Airlines and set off for the Left Bank.

From spirits and indigenous history to Hermes and St. Germain. 

What a strange, Lewis Carollesque world we live in.

But there's another reason for hopping aboard a flight to Europe. After spending a few days in Paris shooting madly with an ageing camera, I'm now in London to 'rehearse' the itinerary of the Garden Tour. I didn't want to make a big deal out it. In fact, my mother doesn't even know I'm here! I just wanted to quietly slip into the country, walk through the tour, and make sure it was going to be one you are all going to remember.

I also wanted to find the most gorgeous fashion boutiques, gardening shops and bookstores, the best bistros and restaurants and the most enchanting walks, sights, secret gardens and squares to take you to. And tomorrow, while my agent finalises the costs with her contacts (it's been very much a group effort), I'm hiring a car and hot-footing it out to the Cotswolds for the day, to find the loveliest destinations there too.

I can tell you now, it's going to be superb week or two.

But there's other, very important, thing I've discovered on this little 'dress rehearsal' (or horticultural run-through). And that is this: It's very important to slow down every now and then, to smell the proverbial damask-scented roses.

You see, my normal travel style for work is to go at a manic pace: something many of you will no doubt also do. But I received a much-needed lesson in The Art of Slowing Down at Versailles on Sunday. On an unseasonably warm autumn day, I sat in one of the beautiful bosquets and took in the splendour of it all. It was there, underneath a marble statue of someone-or-another, that I had something of a quiet epiphany. The true pleasure of travel is not to fit 48 hours into 6 but to stop and truly observe the Versailles delights. Don't you think? Especially in a garden. Especially in a garden.

Sunday turned out to be one of the most magical days I can ever remember, perhaps in my entire life. I spent 6 hours walking right around the gardens in a slow botanical marathon, something I've never had the time to do when visiting here. I have to say, it was almost an spiritual experience. I think at one point, looking down at the perfect symmetry of the Orangerie, I even shed a discreet tear.

I'm looking forward to bringing you all the details of the tours at the end of this week, plus some secret addresses from London and Paris for when you next visit. (If it's not with me. But I very much hope it will be.)

To finish this little post off, I would really like to encourage you all to travel, whether it's on my Garden Tours or just your own quiet jaunt. If you've had a terrible year, or gotten over an illness, or received a redundancy, or broken up with a loved one, or if you've simply had a bad time of it of late, please do this for yourself. Find a cheap flight and go somewhere beautiful in the world. It will help put things into perspective. Truly. Life isn't meant to be lived in a room. Or in a house. Or in a small town or suburb. It's meant to be lived with rigour and vigour and inspirational days that you remember for always.

As Diana Vreeland famously said "The eye has to travel."
I agree, Diana. I agree.

{All photos taken by me. On my battered, travel-weary old camera.}