The idea for this new Grand Tour, says Marchant, was for travellers to experience the same significant moments that Christie did but reinterpreted for the modern age.Ĭhapter One takes visitors to South Africa, where you can bed down at the Belmond Mount Nelson Hotel – just as Christie did – and also learn to surf, as she did, with Table Mountain as the stunning backdrop. From here you can explore the writer’s London with a private walking tour, and see one of Christie’s plays come to life with tickets for Witness For The Prosecution at County Hall ( ).įor even more insight into her life and times, you can also arrange to have Brown’s renowned afternoon tea accompanied by either British historian Lucy Worsley or Prichard, who promises to bring insider knowledge about the writer. Those who want the full experience might start with a stay at Brown’s Hotel. Most beautiful: In New Zealand, you can visit the same wilderness landscapes of Rotorua, Nelson and Hokitika (above) that Christie fell in love with I suspect that she saw the trip she made with Archie as the ultimate travel opportunity, and not just something she needed to do to support her husband.’

Prichard describes his great-grandmother as fearless for her time, adding: ‘Early journeys to Cairo and Paris whetted her appetite. We had never been people who had played safe, and now we were determined to see the world and risk what would happen on our return.’ She describes in her book The Grand Tour that this would be her one opportunity to expand her horizons: ‘I longed to see China and Japan and India and Hawaii, and a great many other places, but my dream remained, and probably always would remain, wishful thinking. Christie, then aged 32, was intent on joining him, despite it meaning they would have to leave behind their two-year-old daughter Rosalind. You can do part of the journey or the full 40-night expedition, which is broken up into three ‘chapters’: South Africa, North America, and Australia and New Zealand.Ĭhristie’s journey was originally intended as a fact-finding mission for her husband Archie, who was a financial adviser for the upcoming British Empire Exhibition of 1924. You can follow Christie’s travels by bush tram to Australia's remote Dandenong Ranges (pictured) where she wrote about eating ‘twenty-three oranges – carefully selected from the trees around me’

The Grand Tour by Agatha Christie