Winchester Walking Tours are a brilliant way to discover more about the city. Even if you’re a regular long term visitor, like me, it’s nice to know some of the history and stories behind the things you regularly pass by. It also showed me a couple of streets and things I never knew existed!
Here’s more details and why it’s a lovely activity to do…
Learn More About Winchester
You might ask what possessed me to book a walking tour of a city that I’ve gone to college in?
Well, this is a really easy one for me to answer. First of all, I wanted to know more about the history of all the cool buildings I walk past regularly. Secondly, you can always learn something new from someone else. Whether it’s a secret side street, or a place you didn’t know existed.
Plus, it’s a very simple way to make yourself feel like a tourist in a city you’re familiar with. I love that feeling of discovering something new. At the time of writing this, the coronavirus pandemic is still having its merry way with us all and there are still major travel restrictions in place.
New to Winchester?
A Winchester Walking Tour is the perfect way to get to know the city better. If you’ve never been or you only have a short amount of time to spend there, this is a really easy and efficient way to seeing a lot without the stress of sorting your own itinerary.
Walking Winchester
This tour was the ‘City Highlights Tour’ which lasted for an hour and a half, for a very reasonable £6.50. Winchester Tourist Information at the Winchester Guildhall is the starting point, which is really central and easy to find.
It’s here where we met our Winchester Walking Tour guide, a very knowledgable chap called Colin. I really liked his relaxed but still informative style, and how he covered lots of different parts of history. He wove lots of brilliant stories into more factual aspects of the city’s history too.
We did a loop around the back streets of the Cathedral taking in places like Jane Austen’s house and Winchester College. We’d stop in strategic places and it highlights so many little gardens and greens I’ve never noticed before.
I’d say it was a very easy loop, there were options to not take stairs and our guide was very accommodating checking everyone’s abilities.
Colin also gave a good couple of suggestions for other things to do in Winchester. They were excellent recommendations perfect if you were new to the city.
Winchester Walking Tours
Winchester Walking Tours are through Winchester Tourist Information Centre and walk topics, duration and price vary depending on the focus.
It was a beautifully wholesome way to spend a couple of hours in my favourite city in Hampshire. I really enjoyed the tour and definitely would do the ones on other topics and areas of the city too. They offer Eastern City Tours, Crime and Punishment Tours and more focused on specific time periods and people.
To find out the latest tours, times and how to book visit the Winchester Tourist Guides website. You can also find tickets on Eventbrite.
If you liked this, take a look at these other great places to visit nearby in Hampshire…
- WHERE TO GET BREAKFAST IN HAMPSHIRE
- WALK THE WALLINGTON RIVER IN FAREHAM
- WALK THE RIVER HAMBLE FROM WARSASH
I went to university in Winchester and although I didn’t do the walking tour. I knew about them, such a lovely thing to do. It’s a beautiful city that should be explored on foot. Excellent post 🙂
Thanks Gemma! It was a good morning, I definitely want to do the others on more specific topics and other parts of Winchester now. I’m jealous you went to University there!