In mid-September, a group of fifty travelers, two podcast hosts, and two travel organizers converged on London with the goal of standing together where history happened. Goal achieved and far exceeded!
We (the two aforementioned podcast hosts) wanted to hear from the travelers themselves about their journey, so we’ve invited them to help create this episode. You’ll hear tales of art, theater, adventure, side-quests, and lots of history– but perhaps the greatest experiences for all of the travelers were the friendships made along the way.
Laura Hart, of Like Minds Travel, had carefully planned this adventure to hit places that we have talked about on previous episodes, as well as leaving a bit of time each day for people to head out on side-quests and do things that were special to them. Thanks to technology, the entire group had met virtually long before Day One and planned these excursions together.
“Anyone want to visit the Churchill War Rooms?” someone would ask in our WhatsApp group. Next thing we knew, the side quest had been planned, people had signed up, and tickets were purchased. Lather, rinse, repeat.
It was a glorious thing to watch happen and a more glorious thing to experience.
Here are some of the highlights of our Field Trip, but listen to the episode for more details from the people who lived them!
The first thing thatwe did as a group was take a night-time, doube-decker bus tour of this beautiful city!We braved the chill to see the glistening sites.Day one included a tour of Westminster Abbey AND a romp through Buckingham Palace on the last day it was open for their season! One small corner of the palace from across a pond.First group photo! In front of the Tower of London!As we entered for our private viewing of the Crown Jewels!Yes, Jett, the Tower of London is very similar to a RenFest with a very important difference.Just a tiny corner of Blenheim Palace’s gardens…the secret isn’t that this is here, it’s how to get in.We broke into two groups for a Suffragette walking tour and heard differing opinions on this woman: Emmeline PankhurstOur private Fortnum and Mason afternoon tea and etiquette lesson with Eileen Donaghey, The Afternoon Tea ExpertJane Austen Day! This was the desk where she wrote!Jane Day AND Highclere Castle Day!Hampton Court,a castle where Henry VIII lived, was part one of a theme day.The second part of the theme day was seeing SIX! The Musical! (The theme was the Wives of Henry VIII, get it?)An accidental sidequest: Beckett spotted this pillar mailbox with Queen VICTORIA’S cypher near our hotelOne very proud Mom on another side-quest in the Leake Street Tunnel!Good night London, it’s been a trip of a lifetime!
Stay tuned for announcements in the near future about Field Trips for 2024!
While we’re on a Field Trip, we turned the show over to the Roosters this week with a Veuve Clicquot adjacent subject: The History of Absinthe with The Gilded Gentleman, Carl Raymond. Keep an ear out for cameos from Bowery Boy Greg Young, and Chris Graham Beckett’s husband. Carl talks with Don Spiro, creator of New York’s Green Fairy Society to tell the truth and bust the myths, surrounding this historic beverage. For show notes on this episode, visit The Bowery Boys New York History. Thank you, Carl, Don, Greg, and Chris!
It took us a bit to pronounce correctly(ish) since we had been reading it, you know, like you are right now. REIMS
Barbe-Nicole Clicquot lived an upper-class life during a tumultuous time in French history and, upon her marriage, worked with her husband in a very unusual capacity: helping to run a family vineyard. But, when he passed away at a very young age, she made an unusual and audacious choice about how to live her life.
We’ve gone fishin’…okay, not real fishing, but we have taken a little summer break to focus on some life transitions that we have going on in our personal lives. Because one of them has to do with sending our sons off to the next chapters in their lives and facing empty nests ourselves, we thought of Lillian Gilbreth. Not only because she had many children herself, or because we both admire her so much for all she did as a working mom when working moms were very rare (in her social class, anyway.) We didn’t think of her because of her long-lasting and still-in-use work to make women’s lives easier (and men’s, of course.) Nope. We thought of this episode because both of our about-to-be-launched sons are in it! Not only is Beckett’s son in the 30-Second Summary, but the boys, who were 10 at the time, were causing a ruckus while we were recording!
This summer we’re all Barbie Girls, but the origin of this iconic doll stems from a very real woman, Ruth Handler. After seeing the movie, we thought that listening to Barbie and Ruth’s history really would enhance the experience–there are A LOT of Barbie history Easter Eggs in there, thanks Greta Gerwig!
This episode was recorded several years ago, and the entire shownotes can be found HERE! SHOWNOTES ARE HERE!
*The beginning section of part two of this episode, the story of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, has the strongest Little Ears warning we’ve ever had. Adults, please preview this before kids (or really, anyone who is sensitive to violent content) listen. You can pick her story back up at the 48:00 minute mark.*
After our discussion about the heritage of Queen Charlotte, we decided to divide and conquer with two mini-episodes on aristocratic women of color in the Georgian and Victorian eras.
