oliverandharry

My cousin and her friend, both late 60s, want to tour Anglican cathedrals in England in June of 2014, for perhaps two weeks. They are already planning their itinerary and are firm on which cathedrals they want to see, from Lindesfarne to Canterbury and as far west as perhaps Oxford. They absolutely will not drive themselves. So, is it possible to hire a driver - not necessarily a tour guide since they are good researchers, very well traveled and highly religious - they will want to stay a long time in places and attend a Mass, etc.- so it could mean a good deal of standing around for a driver. Ideally they'd love a poor seminary student who would be happy for a summer stipend. Is this even possible? Any recs of where to start welcome - price not really an issue. Thanks so much.

janisj

They want to cover an enormous amount of territory.

Blue Badges are the best in the business but they are (uber) qualified guides so your cousin would be paying for the expertise. http://www.driver-guides.org.uk

Or, I have an outside-the-box suggestion. Perhaps they should ask a younger friend/relative to join them and do the driving.

julia_t

Following on from janis's last suggestion, it occurs to me that in June there will be many students just out of university for the summer and looking for paid work.

Many will have driving licences, and if they are over 21 they can drive a rental car. If they have their own vehicles you'd have to cover the running costs of the vehicle. At a guess perhaps around 50p per mile.

There are lots of people looking for driving jobs on gumtree, see here...

http://www.gumtree.com/work-wanted/l...ersonal+driver

Rubicund

If you take a hire car and then pay someone to drive it, you'll find that the insurance won't cover you. Hire car insurance will not cover what I think is called "hire and reward".

One alternative is someone with a car that is covered by such insurance, essentially a taxi, but it will be prohibitively expensive for two weeks. Otherwise public transport is the answer.

anicecupoftea

If they are interested in cathedrals rather than abbeys or priories, most will be in city centres. In which case could they dispense with a car and do the travelling between cities by train? Even the more remote, like Lindisfarne, would be accessible by bus or taxi from the nearest train station.

bilboburgler

I think I would do it by train with a special taxi/bus for Lindisfarne as Nice puts it.

I feel many smaller churches are more interesting than Cathedrals have they seen http://www.rideandstrideuk.org/ for instance.

flanneruk

The only Anglican cathedrals that aren't within a 10 min walk of a mainline railway station are Ripon, Southwell and Wells. Wells must be out of their area. And though Ripon and Southwell are well worth going out of the way to see, there is an element of obsessive completism in including them. But, by definition, all cathedrals are well served by buses from the nearest railway town anyway.

Even if you extend the churches on the trip to include other grand, functioning non-cathedrals, you've got little more than Westminster Abbey, Lindisfarne, maybe Walshingham and a couple of imposing town churches in the Greater Churches group (http://greaterchurches.org/visit). Again: virtually all near a station.

Incidentally, aspiring Anglican ordinands study at training (or theological) colleges: the CofE has devised some of the most beautiful services in Christianity - but Masses aren't among those celebrated at its cathedrals.

Greater modern tolerance now allows the Christmas Eve vigil service to be called "Midnight Mass" very, very occasionally in a few cathedrals - but otherwise the only Mass you'll find in a CofE cathedral will by a professional choir, with a full orchestra, no celebrant and a substantial entry fee.

Some Anglican churches do call their main service Mass, and increasingly use the pre-Vatican II Roman Missal, rather than the Book of Common Prayer, as their model. But if they want to attend it, they'll have to seek out the odd church with a statue of King Charles the Martyr, a strong smell of incense and practically the only remaining male vicar in the Anglican Communion to find it.

nytraveler

Agree that most services anglican churches in the UK are not "mass" that is usually reserved for catholic services. (Not sure if episcopalian churches in the US have "masses" or services.)

nytraveler

And agree they can get to cities with most churches - and to the churches via train and taxi easily.

annhig

flanner is quite right, of course, about the services, though there should still be music available at the communion services on sundays and evensong in the evenings.

for example, our local cathedral in Truro [easily accessible by train] has 6 sung services per week:


http://www.trurocathedral.org.uk/day...s-overview.php

virtually every cathedral will have an excellent men's/boys' choir and some have girls too.

where Flanner is a little bit off the mark is his suggestion that the large choirs that perform the standard works like Verdi/Mozart Masses in cathedrals are professional, though as a member of such a choir I'm flattered that he thinks that. by and large we are all amateur enthusiasts who give up at least one night a week to practice, though our soloists are professional as generally are the orchestral players [in the sense that they are typically music teachers or otherwise earn a living in music].

none of which is probably any use to the OP at all, but it's nice to put the record straight!