Solo tours for 2019 include Jordan & the Côte d'Azur
posted on 13/07/18
In 2019, Martin Randall Travel is running five tours designed exclusively for solo travellers.
Following the popularity of our 2018 offerings to Sicily, Uzbekistan and St Petersburg, we have expanded our range of solo tours to five, with the addition of Essential Jordan and Modern Art on the Côte d'Azur.
Of course, solo travellers are welcome on all our tours. Thirty years of experience has taught us that the combination of beautiful locations, stimulating conversation and fascinating subject matter is ideal for anyone travelling on their own. But these five itineraries offer a great opportunity to share an interest with like-minded people.
Civilisations of Sicily – Mediterranean crossroads: 3,000 years of creativity
18–30 March 2019 (also 12–24 November 2018)
As a stepping-stone across the Mediterranean, Sicily’s strategic position is unrivalled. So it is little wonder that every wave of the region’s history has lapped its shores. Greek colonists left magnificent Doric temples; Roman plutocrats laid exquisite mosaics; and in Palermo’s Palatine chapel, the island’s 11th-century Norman conquerors oversaw a remarkable synthesis of Christian and Islamic art. Our carefully paced 13-day itinerary includes these, and many other sights – including an excursion to Calabria to see the Riace Bronzes.
Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur – Picasso, Matisse, Chagall & their contemporaries
21–27 March 2019
Drawn by the light and climate, ground-breaking artists transformed the French Mediterranean into a nexus of modern art. This Nice-based tour celebrates their enduring genius with visits to museums and houses associated with Matisse, Chagall, Picasso and Renoir. Highlights include the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild at St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat (for both its art collection and extraordinary gardens) and the Picasso Museum at Antibes, housed in his former studio in the Château Grimaldi.
'It was my first time with Martin Randall and I was very happy. As a single traveller I appreciated being with a group of pleasant travelling companions.'
A solo client on a past tour.
Samarkand & Silk Road Cities – with Khiva, Bukhara, Tashkent & Shakhrisabz
5–16 April 2019
At the very centre of Central Asia lies a landscape that seems almost immune to modernity. Magnificent mosques and madrassas, acres of turquoise wall tiles, intricate and meandering streets: along the course of the Silk Road, Uzbekistan’s cities open a window onto a forgotten world, and on this 11-day tour we investigate its key sights and tumultuous history. Fabulous riches, renowned scholars, Genghis Khan: this region knew them all.
St Petersburg – pictures and palaces in the imperial capital
13–20 September 2019
Art, architecture and history are at their most compelling in this grandest of cities. We visit the Hermitage (twice) and the Russian Museum with its outstanding collection of icons, and there is the opportunity to attend a performance of opera or ballet at the Mariinsky or Mikhailovsky theatres. There are also excursions to the summer palaces of Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk, and to Peterhof Palace.
Essential Jordan – the major Nabataean, Roman, Christian & Islamic sites
26 October–3 November 2019
No one forgets Petra – “that rose-red city, half as old as time” whose sandstone cliffs were carved into towering facades by the Nabataeans. But as we discover on this nine-day tour, theirs wasn’t the only civilisation to flourish in this harsh but spectacular land. At Jerash, we walk the streets of the magnificent Roman city, Gerasa; at Karak, gaze from mighty Crusader walls; and in Qasr Amra inspect exquisite – and decidedly secular – frescoes from the early days of Islam.
Led by Sue Rollin and Jane Streetly, co-authors of the 'Blue Guide to Jordan'.
