Depart From: North America for overnight flight.

Arrive To: Manchester Airport. Transfer to Ruthin.

Lunch: Lunch in Bewley's Hotel Manchester Airport. Make your own way there where the group leader will meet you. Bewley’s Hotel Manchester Airport operates a free shuttle bus to/from all 3 terminals. This service runs 24 hours. Manchester Airport terminal 1 and terminal 3 are both located less than a 5 minute walk away from the hotel.

Afternoon: Transfer continues. Check-in and free time before a welcome meeting at 5:00pm with Conway Davies, Course Director.

Dinner: In the hotel.

Evening: Introductory lecture.

Lodging: Ruthin Castle Hotel

Meals Included: Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: Full Welsh breakfast in the hotel.

Morning: Field trip to the World Heritage Site Conwy and to Conwy Castle where grandchildren will learn how to attack and defend a castle while the grandparents take a tour of the Castle and town. Conway Castle is one of the best medieval fortresses in Europe built for King Edward I as one of his "iron ring" of castles built to contain the Welsh. From the battlements look out across stunning mountains and Snowdonia countryside and the harbour and walled town.

Lunch: In the Castle Hotel, one of the most photgraphed locations in Conwy. An old coaching inn, stands on the site of a Cistercian abbey and used to consist of two famous hostelries, The Castle and the 15th Century King's Head. Local granite and brick gave it a facelift in the 19th century and many famous people such a William Wordsworth, Thomas Telford and the Queen of Romania stayed here. Serves local Welsh produce.

Afternoon: Walk around the medieval town wall. The field trip continues to Plas Mawr where you see a 16th century Welsh merchant's house and hear about everyday life of Tudor gentry and their servants in an historic house.

Dinner: In the hotel.

Evening: Enjoy a historical and humorous illustrated talk on the Ancient Laws of Hywel Dda.

Lodging: Ruthin Castle Hotel

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Pontcyssyllte viaduct and Llangollen barge ride. Great Orme Copper Mine. Unique views from above and below!

Breakfast: Full Welsh breakfast in the hotel.

Morning: Field trip to Llangollen. Take a horse drawn barge from Llangollen to the Pontcysyllte viaduct. The aqueduct, taking the Llangollen Canal over the beautiful River Dee valley, is 1000 feet long and 125 feet high. Such distances had never before been conquered, until Telford's decision to build it by laying an iron water-carrying trough on stone piers. To this day, the joints are effectively sealed using a mixture of flannel and lead dipped in liquid sugar. We will be crossing on foot.

Lunch: Excluded so that you can explore local fare in Llangollen.

Afternoon: Field trip to Great Orme Bronze Age Copper Mine, Llandudno. Travel back 4000 years and tour of the works and activities such as smelting copper and tin to make a bronze axe-head, dying and weaving and then travel on the vehicular railway. Take a helmet and make your way down to the mines. Although the tunnels you walk through are large enough to stand in, many tunnels leading off are so small that they could only have been mined by children, as young as 5 or 6 years.

Dinner: In the hotel.

Evening: Walk historic Ruthin.

Lodging: Ruthin Castle Hotel

Meals Included: Breakfast, Dinner

Breakfast: Full Welsh breakfast in the hotel.

Morning: Field trip to the Museum of Slate at Llanberis to see slate splitting by skilled cratfsmen and take a tour of the works. Explore the history of the industry so important to Welsh communities since the 19th century is brought to life with workshops, a foundry, forges and waterpowered machinery. The museum houses the largest working waterwheel in the UK. The Museum building is sited in the Victorian workshops built in the shadow of Elidir mountain, site of the vast Dinorwig quarry.

Lunch: Packed lunch.

Afternoon: Travel on the narrow gauge railway from Caernarfon to Porthmadog (opening 2009) or between Blaenau Ffestiniog and Porthmadog. Visit Caernarfon.

Dinner: In the hotel.

Evening: Enjoy a harpist performance and learn how to play a simple tune on the harp.

Lodging: Ruthin Castle Hotel

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: Full Welsh breakfast in the hotel.

Morning: Coach transfer to Cardiff via Arthur's Labyrinth. An underground adventure unfolds as you sail along a subterranean river, through the great waterfall, deep inside the spectacular Labyrinth and far into the past and a world of myths, legends and storytelling. Hear stories of dragons and giants, treachery,battles and floods in a sound and light display.

Lunch: Lunch out in Coris.

Afternoon: Transfer continues. Check-in to hotel.

Dinner: In the hotel.

Evening: Introduction to the locality.

Lodging: Maldron Hotel

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Victorian school lesson at Museum of National History at St Fagans and medieval village complete with peasants.

Breakfast: Full Welsh breakfast in the hotel.

Morning: Field trip to the Museum of National History at St Fagans where the children take a Victorian lesson in a schoolroom with adults viewing if they wish. This is followed by a tour of the open air site including iron age settlement. St Fagans is one of Europe's foremost open–air museums and Wales's most popular heritage attraction. Over forty original buildings from different historical periods have been re-erected in the 100-acre parkland. The re-erected buildings include houses, a farm, a school, a chapel and a splendid Workmen's Institute

Lunch: Lunch in St Fagans.

Afternoon: Field trip to Cosmeston Medieval Village to experience life in a Medieval Village before the coming of the Black Death and Plague. A reconstructed village of 14th century peasant life with costumed villagers.

Dinner: In the hotel.

Evening: Enjoy a music workshop.

Lodging: Maldron Hotel

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: Full Welsh breakfast in the hotel.

Morning: The field trip continues to Big Pit National Coal Museum and World Heritage Site --the world-famous underground tour goes 300 feet underground with a real miner to see what life was like for the thousands of men who worked at the coal face. A further 20 minutes or so is taken in 'kitting up' with helmet and cap lamp, collecting contraband (cigarettes, matches, mobile phones, battery-operated equipment etc.) and riding through the shaft. The tour begins with a 300ft (90m) descent down the mineshaft by pit cage. Tours are conducted by experienced colliery personel. For anyone claustrophobic there is a 20 minute audio-visual presentation and a virtual guide.

Lunch: Lunch out in Llancaiach Fawr or the Big Pit.

Afternoon: Field trip to Llancaiach Fawr- a 17th Century semi fortified manor house that claims a number of resident ghosts. Owned during the civil war by the Pritchard family, visitors are greeted by servants of Colonel Pritchard dressed in the costumes of 1645 who tell stories in 17th Century language of life at the time of the civil war. King Charles I visited the house just before his surrender to Cromwell in 1646.

Dinner: In the hotel.

Evening: Walk around historic Cardiff.

Lodging: Maldron Hotel

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

National Roman Legion Museum/Tintern Abbey/Medieval Banquet in Cardiff Castle.

Breakfast: Full Welsh breakfast in the hotel.

Morning: Field trip to Caerleon Roman fort with a visit to the Roman Baths. Introductory talk in the museum followed by an experiential tour of the amphitheatre and barracks. Wales was the furthest outpost of the Roman Empire. In AD 75, the Romans built a fortress at Caerleon that would guard the region for over 200 years. Today at the National Roman Legion Museum you can learn what made the Romans a formidable force and how life wouldn't be the same without them. You'll be able to see a large collection of objects that show us how they lived, fought, worshipped and died. Caerleon was one of only three permanent fortresses in Roman Britain. The Museum lies inside what remains of the fortress, which includes the most complete amphitheatre in Britain and the only remains of a Roman Legionary barracks on view anywhere in Europe.

Lunch: Lunch is taken at the Hanbury Arms.

Afternoon: Take a boat trip at Symonds Yat in England followed by a visit to Tintern Abbey--The Cistercian abbey of Tintern is one of the greatest monastic ruins of Wales. It was only the second Cistercian foundation in Britain, and the first in Wales, and was founded on 9 May 1131 by Walter de Clare, Lord of Chepstow.

Dinner: Enjoy a fun filled Medieval Banquet at Cardiff Castle. Enjoy a glass of mead or soft drink when you arrive, then take your seats in the 15th Century Undercroft for a four course feast of hearty local dishes. Traditionally costumed characters perform popular Welsh songs and invite you to join in the fun. The whole evening is accompanied by the enchanting sounds of the harp.

Lodging: Maldron Hotel

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: Full Welsh breakfast in the hotel.

Morning: Coach transfer to London airport hotel via Castell Coch-Red Castle in Welsh. A fairytale castle romantically created in the Victorian age but rebuilt from the ruins of the original medieval castle. Enjoy storytelling.

Lunch: Packed lunch.

Afternoon: Transfer continues. Check-in.

Dinner: In the hotel.

Evening: At leisure.

Lodging: Radisson Edwardian Heathrow Hotel.

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: Continental breakfast in the hotel.

Morning: Airport shuttle to the terminals. Flights to North America.

Meals Included: Breakfast