There are several interesting and highly recommended small tours that will take you through the history filled West Country surrounding Bath - and using Bath as a base. One does an extensive tour of the Cotswold's (beautiful old villages and green hills with loads of cute sheep) and several have a tour that includes Stonehenge and Avebury Stone Circles, as well as the prettiest Village in the Cotswold's - Castle Combe. I would recommend scheduling your tour in advance, but we've been pretty successful in arranging them once our guests are here.

Tours in order of preference respectively:

Mad Max
Highly recommended:

Stonehenge, Avebury, Lacock and Castle Combe, etc. - 22 pounds Very small group in good van with knowledgeable driver. Other passengers will be nice - just like you

E-mail: Maddy@madmax.abel.co.uk
Telephone: from outside the UK 011 44 1225 325 900 (Bath YMCA)
- include our name as the contact phone number.

The fabulous Mad Max now runs the Cotswold's Tour - Full day tour of many beautiful little villages in the Cotswold's -for 25 pounds per person
They only go out two days a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, but they will
take parties of at least 4 persons on any day.

Mad Max is doing a Half Day Tour! This is a Half Day tour to Stonehenge and includes the Medieval city of Bradford on Avon. Very
interesting and only 12 pounds per person!

Andrews Country Tours
£15.00 for all day tour to Stonehenge, Avebury, Farleigh Hungerford Castle, etc...
They have an e-mail address! c.andrews@talk21.com

Danwood Tours
All of the above plus Longleat and Salisbury (I don't know how they fit it all in, but it is also a good tour): 011 44 1373 465 965

There is also public transportation (bus) to places like Wells (most beautiful small Cathedral in England) and Glastonbury (burial place of King Artuhur and Guinivere - according to legend, and the ruins of Glastonbury Cathedral), as well as a train to Salisbury, as these are normal commuting distance towns.

Salisbury not only boasts Salisbury Cathedral (spectacularly gothic), but is near Old Sarum and is close enough to Stonehenge, that you can take the Salisbury Guide Friday Bus when you step out of the train station, have a tour of the city and Cathedral and let them drive you out to Stonehenge and back again.

Here are some private drivers:

Julian Rouse- Echo Tango
Cambridge man, who specializes in Jane Austen Tours, but has deep knowledge of loads of interesting subjects and will guide you to most any place.
website: www.echotango.co.uk
e-mail: julian@echotango.co.uk
Telephone from outside UK: 011 44 208 941 7146

John Steedman- Genteel local gentleman
Pleasant and knowledgable.
e-mail: followmetg@aol.com
website: http://members.aol.com/followmetg/index.htm
Telephone from outside the UK: 011 44 1225 421 468

David Brown
David Brown
Local amiable and reasonably priced touring guide who will take you anywhere, in a nice cool vehicle with excellent visibility for up to 6 passengers: Prices for a full day tour £30 per person for 4 passengers, (£60pp for 2, £40pp for 3, £25pp for 5 or 6). Half day tours at 60% of full day prices.
This is a great option for those hard to reach places like the Cotswolds, Stourhead or the Wye Valley & Chepstow Castle in Wales. Contact David Brown at Scenic Travel:
e-mail: david@scenictravel.co.uk
website: http://www.scenictravel.co.uk
011 44 1225 743 226
011 44 775 9791507 (mobile)

If you choose to rent a car, I can recommend plenty of historical and beautiful places to visit within an hour's radius of Bath once you are here.

Train Information:
Here is the number of our train info line - ask them for the quickest
and easiest route to anywhere: 011 44 8457 48 49 50