VisitEngland’s alternative Xmas gift guide

Stonehenge-Visitor-Centre

Looking for something different to give your relatives or friends this Christmas – take a look at VisitEngland’s alternative Xmas gift guide.

If dad is a Wiggo wannabe, buy him a ticket for the world’s best cycle hub and if mum fancies a bake-off challenge, book her a course at Ashburton cookery school. Read on for VisitEngland’s alternative Christmas gift guide.

Stonehenge – like you’ve never seen it before:
The new Stonehenge exhibition and visitor experience opens on December 18 and marks A New Dawn for the landmark (above). For the first time ever at the site, visitors will be able to learn more about this complex monument in a stunning, museum-quality permanent exhibition curated by English Heritage experts. A 360-degree virtual, immersive experience will let visitors ‘stand in the stones’ before they enter a gallery presenting the facts and theories surrounding the monument through various displays and nearly 300 prehistoric artefacts. For the first time, entrance to the stone circle will be managed through timed tickets, for which online booking opens on December 2. Tickets cost £8 for adults, £4.80 for children.
www.english-heritage.org.uk/stonehenge

Tickets to the world’s best cycling hub:
Christmas gifts for cycling fans don’t get much better than this… The Lee Valley VeloPark (below) opens in March 2014 and gift vouchers are on sale just in time for Christmas. Set in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, in the heart of east London, Lee Valley VeloPark will be Europe’s biggest cycling hub, featuring five miles of mountain bike trails, a one-mile floodlit road circuit, the remodelled and floodlit Olympic BMX track and, of course, the Olympic Velodrome where Team GB won seven gold medals during London 2012. Gift vouchers start from just £15 for a one-hour taster session, with longer courses also available.
http://www.visitleevalley.org.uk/en/content/cms/london2012/velo-park/gift-vouchers

Lee Valley Velopark3

First performance at the Globe’s Sam Wanamaker indoor theatre:
A new 340-seat indoor theatre, set right next door to London’s Globe theatre, will be staging its first public performances in January, enabling the Globe to offer live theatre throughout the year. Designed to be built as a theatre that Shakespeare himself would recognise, the venue is intended to be the most complete recreation yet of an indoor Jacobean theatre. Tickets for everything from comedy performances and candlelit concerts to opera and tragedies are on sale now.
https://tickets.shakespearesglobe.com/selectshow.asp?EIC=SAM

Festive food and wine getaway:
Cosy country house hotel The Ilsington in Dartmoor has launched a Festive Gifts break that offers guests the chance to combine a weekend away with a day spent cooking a range of edible goodies to fill Christmas gift boxes – all topped off with an evening’s wine tasting. The one-day Christmas gift cookery course takes place at the nearby Ashburton cookery school, while the rest of the package includes breakfast, a buffet lunch on Saturday and a traditional Sunday roast, as well as dinner in the hotel’s award winning restaurant on both evenings. The two-night break, arriving on November 29, starts from £375 per person.
www.ilsington.co.uk

Go Ape

Release your inner ape this Christmas with Go Ape:
Give something different to a friend, colleague or relative this Christmas – the Go Ape experience (above) offers a day of fun and thrills in the great outdoors, exploring all that the forest has to offer from the forest floor to the tree-tops. For all those little Tarzans and Janes that want to monkey around too, Go Ape offers Tree Top Junior courses. Taking place five metres above the floor, the junior courses enable children as young as six (or over 1 metre tall) to take to the trees and weave their way through a network of 20 looping obstacles. For those that prefer to stay closer to the ground, Forest Segway allows riders to explore off-road on a latest green technology, self-balancing, electric all-terrain Segway. Vouchers range from £5 to £60 and can be purchased online.
http://goape.co.uk/gift

Tickets to the West End:
The West End has a grand total of six new British musicals on offer so there’s no better time to grab a pair of hot tickets. The Commitments has kicked off the spate of home-grown shows and will be followed by Tim Rice’s From Here to Eternity, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Stephen Ward, Marianne Elliot (erstwhile producer of War Horse) and The Light Princess, I Can’t Sing – the X-Factor Musical and Rupert Goold’s, Psycho, starring former Dr Who, Matt Smith. Give the gift of entertainment this Christmas and pop a pair of tickets in your loved one’s stocking.
www.londontheatre.co.uk

Discover original gifts with Craft Finder:
A world away from internet shopping, a new app by Craft Finder helps shoppers find galleries and craft fairs up and down the country. The app helps shoppers find hidden gems, locally-based but unlikely to be on the high street, listing over 700 stockists that sell the work of 270 designer-makers. Using Craft Finder to help with the Christmas shopping means you won’t run the risk of giving the same gift as everyone else.
www.craftfinder.org.uk

For those that have it all
Some people are impossible to please, but something quirky could be just the ticket. A Walk with Wolves, via the Wolf Conservation Trust, is truly a once in a lifetime experience. Annual membership to the Trust costs £100, but includes a wolf walk for two around the Trust’s site in Berkshire. You’ll see wolves up close as they interact with the environment, investigating scent trails and taking a dip in the stream. There are volunteers on hand to answer questions throughout, as well as an official talk halfway through the experience. Additional wolf walks are available to members during the year for £30 per person.
http://ukwct.org.uk/index.php?page=walk

For more Christmas ideas visit www.visitengland.com/christmas