AGATHA CHRISTIE AND MAX MALLOWAN IN LONDON

NEW FOR 2021

Archaeology as inspiration for history’s best-selling novelist

3 Days Departing Aug 2021From £745pp

Activity Level = 3

Tour Highlights

• View finds from Max Mallowan’s excavations in the British Museum

• Follow in Agatha Christie’s footsteps on a walking tour of London

• Discover the inspiration for some of Agatha Christie’s most famous books

Agatha Christie, the ‘queen of crime’ and the best-selling author of all time, also went by the title Lady Mallowan and had a deep passion for archaeology. Her second marriage was to Max Mallowan, a famous British archaeologist who she met during a visit to the excavations at Ur, near Baghdad.

During their life together, Agatha accompanied Max to several of his excavations in the Middle East. Here, she gained inspirations for some of her most popular novels such as Murder in Mesopotamia and her autobiographical account Come, Tell Me How You Live, where she wrote about her experiences on excavations and travels in Syria and Iraq in the 1930s.

This tour sheds light on the archaeological work of Max Mallowan, showcasing finds from his excavations that are on display in the British Museum, and also Agatha Christie’s life in London, where we will visit some of the places she lived, worked at or used as inspiration for settings in her many books.

Guided by Peter Berridge An archaeologist with an interest in a wide range of subjects, Peter has worked on excavations in the UK.

Price includes

• Expert Guide Lecturer & Professional Tour Manager

• Entries to all sites as per the itinerary

• All taxes & gratuities Included travel

• All local transport

Accommodation

• Accommodation at the Grange Beauchamp Hotel, London

Culinary inclusions

• 2 breakfasts, 1 lunches & 2 dinners

• Water with all meals, wine & tea or coffee with dinner

Dates & prices per person

Date 9th - 11th Aug ‘21 Twin/Dbl Share £745 SS £225

For full details of this tour visit andantetravels.co.uk/aanm

Agatha Christie and Egypt

The history and mystery of the ancient world were a lifelong source of fascination for Agatha Christie, and her passion for seeing its treasures uncovered presented both a rich seam of literary inspiration and an introduction to her second husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan. Though she travelled extensively around the Near East, particularly during Mallowan’s digs in Syria and Iraq in the 1930s, it was Egypt that really entranced the world’s bestselling author.

Christie’s love affair with Egypt seems to have begun with a stay in Cairo in 1910 as a 20-year-old. Three months at the Gezira Palace Hotel inspired her first, unpublished novel Snow Upon the Desert (1910), which was set in the Egyptian capital. A little over a decade later, Howard Carter’s successful search for the tomb of the boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun had hit

headlines around the world and drew vast numbers of well-heeled travellers to the Luxor and the Valley of the Kings. This was the backdrop for Christie’s 1923 short story The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb. Christie and Mallowan married in 1930, the start of a decade which would see the publication of her most famous Egypt-set novel Death on the Nile (1937), which was supposedly written during a stay at Luxor’s ‘grande dame’ Old Winter Palace Hotel. Some of the book’s scenes are set among the monumental temples of Abu Simbel, others on aboard a Nile steamer and at Aswan’s luxurious Old Cataract Hotel. The appeal of Death on the Nile endures, with a major film adaptation set for release in 2021. And Egypt was the setting for Christie’s most unusual novel, 1944’s Death Comes as an End – a whodunnit, but one which takes place in

Ancient Egypt, based on the discovery and translation of the 4,000-year-old papyri known as the Heqanakhte Letters, to which Christie was introduced by a friend, the Egyptologist Stephen Glanville.

Andante Travels’ Egypt tours encompass the ancient highlights which so inspired Agatha Christie, but one itinerary in particular captures the romance and glamour of Christie’s Egypt – the brand new Golden Age of Travel: Egypt tour includes stays at the iconic Old Winter Palace and Old Cataract hotels, as well as the historic Mena House Hotel in Giza and a deluxe Nile cruise. Follow in Agatha Christie’s footsteps and stay where she stayed on this once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Visit andantetravels.co.uk/ tours/aega for full details.

Image: British Museum

To book a tour today visit andantetravels.co.uk or call 01722 239 895 13