Colin Crosby Heritage Tours

We Enjoyed the Mystery Tour

Anne and I went on a Mystery Coach Tour in the Summer.

It's not often that we find a weekend when we are both free, but we did find such a weekend in August, and there were places available on this trip.

Also, neither of us had experienced a Mystery Tour as customers, although of course I run morning ones, including the annual Free Mystery Tour in February.

The company concerned was CoachStyle, part of the Skills Group, and the coach was a very comfortable one.

We set off from St. Margarets Bus Station in Leicester on the Saturday morning. This was the last pick up, other people having got on at Nottingham, Loughborough and the surrounding area.

We had a coffee stop at the RoadChef services at Watford Gap, where we each had one of their excellent breakfasts.

Then it was on to a mystery destination. To be honest, it didn't take much working out. It was Oxford.

We had about three hours in this splendid university city, before getting back on the coach.

In mid afternoon, we were delivered to our overnight hotel, the Ramada at East Horsley near Guildford.

Before dinner, we explored the village, including the parish church and an extraordinary building which is now a conference centre.

The room was fine, dinner was fine (although we were amazed to find that if we wanted coffee with it we had to go to the bar and pay extra) and breakfast would have been fine if we had been at the head of the queue for it.

After breakfast, we left East Horsley by the same route, and went to another destination. Again, it was not difficult to work out where. It was Windsor.

We had about three hours in Windsor as well, and had a look round Windsor Castle.

Then it was back to Leicester, where we arrived in the late afternoon, having stopped again at Watford Gap Services.

We did enjoy the weekend, and of course it was very useful to me that the two destinations were places to which I was myself to be taking a coach fairly soon. Windsor was one of the stops on the Thames Valley Tour, and I will be taking a coach to Oxford, including a Guided Walk, in January.

But we did feel that there was a distinct lack of imagination. The reverse trip was exactly the same as the outward journey, except that we deviated to go to Windsor instead of deviating for Oxford. We even stopped at the same services.

Still, we did have a nice weekend.