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City Safari Amsterdam The capital and most populated city of the Netherlands 11th - 14th April 2024 Led by Sue Constable 3 nights, from £695 Discount for AIA members Payment can now be made by credit card This tour is now fully booked |
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City Safaris and Industrial Explorer Weekends
These walking tours take a look at an industrial city's civic, commercial, industrial and transport legacy on foot, guided by an expert. Our groups are deliberately kept small so that everyone has a chance to ask the leader questions as we go and to make walking as a group practicable in an urban environment. We go away for a long weekend and stay together as a group at a reasonable hotel. A dinner is held on the Thursday evening which is a chance for new members to be introduced and old friends to catch up on news. After dinner there is a short talk to introduce the city and its history as well as to explain the programme. City Safaris use whatever public transport is available: bus, tram, metro or train which is a great way to gain some understanding of how the area works and may be of historic interest in themselves. Industrial Explorer Weekends are the same but we use a minibus to reach areas where public transport does not go and to give us the possibility of conveniently exploring a slightly wider area. We tend to spend more time looking at buildings than we do going inside, but we usually try to include at least one visit to a site of industrial interest. In Sheffield, for example, we visited a small, specialist scissor maker. In the Black Country we rode through the Dudley tunnel on a trip boat and ended the tour in the Black Country Museum. We look at all kinds of buildings: industrial, civic, retail and domestic. We cover everything from workers' cottages & workshops via pubs and factories to the magnificence of northern Victorian Town Halls and don’t forget the merely quirky. And we like interesting buildings in all kinds of condition, be they in use, re-used, shabby, derelict or forgotten. Transport is always part of the story: roads, railways and canals. We generally walk about 5 miles a day. When walking around we are often asked why we are standing looking at a particular building, perhaps by people who now live or work there. Sometimes we are able to tell them more about the building than they know themselves but in response they are sometimes able to fill in some interesting snippets of social history which adds greatly to the mix. Group members are provided with a full set of notes describing details of every building we stop by. We usually include stops for morning coffee, lunch and afternoon tea. Tour members often say that these trips allow them to see things that "we never knew were there" and to view urban areas from new angles. |
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ITINERARY Amsterdam (literally, "The Dam on the River Amstel") is the capital and most populated city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 921,402 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the urban area and 2,480,394 in the metropolitan area. Located in the Dutch province of North Holland, the city is sometimes referred to as the "Venice of the North", for its large number of canals, now designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site [Wikipedia]. We first visited Amsterdam in 2001 so it’s high time we visited again! We will be staying in a city centre hotel and will be using the extensive public transport network to travel between sites. There will be suitable breaks on each day to let you rest your feet. |
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OUR GUIDE
Sue Constable will be well known to anyone who came to the Ruhr, Moravia or Romania with the AIA or has joined one of her previous City Safaris or Explorer Weekends. She was born in Buckinghamshire but moved to Hastings at an early age. She read History and Archaeology at Liverpool and also has a qualification in museum studies. She may have started out as an archaeologist but soon changed to being a social and industrial historian. She has worked in museums for most of her life, apart from a spell teaching and a break when her daughter was small. Much of her work in museums has been with industrial collections, ribbon weaving, nail-making and shoemaking. With her husband, Mike, she has explored much of the British and European waterways network. As a social historian she is also interested in how people live and how they organise their living spaces and environment. ACCOMMODATION We will be staying at the Lancaster Hotel, Plantage, Middenlaan 48, 1018 DH – Amsterdam The hotel is located near ARTIS (the Amsterdam Royal Zoo), within easy reach of bars and restaurants and on tram route 14. TRANSPORT The tour starts at the hotel on the Thursday evening and ends at about 14:30 after lunch on the Sunday afternoon. Those travelling back to London via Eurostar can take their bags with them and place them in lockers at Centraal Station at the start of the Sunday morning walk so that we can go straight from lunch to Centraal to catch the 16:45 train. We leave you to make your own travel arrangements to and from Amsterdam to suit your own convenience and use of alternative departure points. You should expect at least 5 miles of walking, in short sections, on Friday and Saturday, mostly on hard surfaces. Detailed joining instructions will be supplied about two weeks before the start of the tour. COST The cost of the tour is £695 per person sharing, single supplement £300. The single supplement is entirely accounted for by the additional costs charged by the hotel for single occupancy. With a high proportion of singles on these tours it is not possible to avoid this. Heritage of Industry is pleased to offer a discount of £10 to any paid-up member of the Association for Industrial Archaeology at the time of the tour. The cost includes:
CANCELLATION CHARGES, HEALTH & INSURANCE Please note that cancellation charges will apply from 8th February 2024, and, although these will be modified to the extent that costs are not actually incurred, you are strongly advised to insure against the need to cancel. You must ensure that you have a valid passport for travel in the European Union (and possibly visas for Non-EU citizens). For UK residents, the Global Health Insurance Card (UK GHIC) replaces the former European Health Insurance Card (EHIC). If you have an EHIC which is still in date you may use it. If yours has expired then you should apply for a GHIC here: https://www.nhs.uk/using-the-nhs/healthcare-abroad/apply-for-a-free-uk-global-health-insurance-card-ghic/ They are free and usually come quite quickly. Non-UK residents also need to consider medical treatment and repatriation charges in the event of illness etc. Participants who do not have travel insurance must nevertheless accept full responsibility for these eventualities. BOOKING Bookings will be taken on a first-come, first-served basis, subject to space availability. Booking is subject to a minimum of 12 and a maximum of 20 people. Book as soon as possible and by 8th February 2024 to ensure a place but please feel free to enquire after that date if a place is still available. We will contact you as soon as possible to confirm the booking. Invoices for the balance of the price will be issued about 8 weeks before the tour starts. A non-refundable deposit of £70 per person is required on booking. Bookings can be made definite only when the booking details and deposit are received and accepted in writing/email by Heritage of Industry Ltd. The company's standard terms and conditions apply. The balance of the price is to be paid to Heritage of Industry Ltd on presentation of the invoice. All monies paid to Heritage of Industry Ltd will be held, in accordance with government regulations**, in a customer protection account until the tour is complete so that your money is safe no matter what happens. Payment should be made via your bank’s online banking facilities, the necessary details are shown on the confirmation of booking. Please send an email note when you have made payment. We are pleased to announce that we are now also able to accept payment by credit card. This tour is now fully booked ** The Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 1992 (SI 1992 No. 3288)
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