Falco’s Britannia

In the morning, we visit the Roman baths at Welwyn preserved just north of modern-day Welwyn Garden City. We proceed to the ancient city of Verulamium, where we visit the only theatre visible above ground in Britain. Our final visit of the day takes us to Verulamium Museum, which contains beautiful colourful mosaics, a hoard of gold coins and many everyday objects excavated from the Roman town.

We travel to Butser Ancient Farm, to explore a reconstructed Romano-British housing, before proceeding to Chichester, where we see vestiges of what had been the heartland of King Togidubnus. We end the day at Fishbourne, the backdrop of a Falco novel, and believed by many to be Togidubnus’ palace, the opulence of which is evidence by its extraordinary mosaics.

We cross the water to the Isle of Wight where we visit Brading Villa, which has an extraordinary array of figurative mosaics, including the intriguing depiction of a man with a cockerel head. We continue to Newport Villa, with a well-preserved bath complex and frescoed walls.

This morning we venture to Portchester Castle, built inside the best-preserved curtain wall of any Roman fort in Northern Europe. It was built in the late 3rd century as the most westerly of the Saxon Shore Forts, protecting cross channel trade and defending against piratical raids. We continue to Old Sarum to consider the transition from Iron Age hill fort to important hub on the Roman road system to Saxon cathedral.

The bathing complex in Bath, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is intriguing for conflating a bathing complex with a sacred spring to the goddess Sulis. Our final visit is closely linked to the first Falco novel, namely the mines at Charterhouse, whose extraction of silver and lead was important for the payment of Roman soldiers.