Luxury England Helicopter Tour & Land Excursion

Now you enter the skyline, becoming another part of the famous cityscape. A helicopter cruises high enough for grand impressions of scale, yet low enough to allow focusing on all the intimate details. Propellers whirl and you rise above the River Thames, cruising along its curves and admiring the scale of the Kew Gardens. Royal parks and palaces glisten below, famous Buckingham revealing guards in red uniform and a British flag rippling in the breeze. Flying along the Thames, you bathe in the history. There's Westminster, ornate and shimmering a rustic golden color. Now the monumental dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, pristinely white and unchanged for centuries. Suburbs soar by, and you fly alongside the Shard, Western Europe's highest building and an indication of London's futuristic facade. Canary Wharf, Olympic Park, the Docklands; each moment brings another of the city's icons.

The cityscape descends; from skyscrapers to tenements to apartments, and then the spacious detached houses that mark the edge of the city. And with everything becoming low rise, Windsor Castle appears like a fictitious giant. The world's largest inhabited castle dominates from afar, a magnificent expanse of stone that has never been invaded. Only from the air can you appreciate the mind-boggling scale of it all. It's not just the building and its various wings, but the vast gardens that seemingly surround everything. You land close to Queen Elizabeth II's home and spend a few hours exploring the castle's excess. State apartments are stuffed with famous paintings, golden leaf surrounds wall-sized portraits, and every seat exhales a scent of opulence. Discover a regal doll collection, elaborate tombs of monarchs, and the towering defenses where archers once stood. Then admire the scale for a second time as you return to the helicopter and fly into the Oxfordshire countryside. Your manor house accommodation is firmly immersed in the sumptuous green of rural England.

Cruising skyward, you soar across the “city of dreaming spires.” Oxford was immortalized by Matthew Arnold's 19th-century poem, and his metaphor continues to resonate. College chapels dapple the skyline, rising at random from beside the medieval center, each revealing more than five centuries of history. It's a cityscape that sets the scene for the day as the helicopter cruises above the Costwolds. Gazing down, you pick out dozens of tiny villages, each dating long before any settlers reached America. For many foreign visitors, it's this green landscape that most reflects preconceptions about England. There's not a tree out of place, everything appearing carefully cultivated, including the cottages and manor houses that stand beside private lakes. If you think you've seen it before, it's probably because you've seen various pastel and watercolor paintings of England.

Soar above the Georgian city of Bath and take in its immense scale. The 18th-century townhouses curve around lawns, dozens of luxurious homes standing in neat terraced rows. From the air, you pick out the ancient Roman baths, as well as those redeveloped and adorned in a sublime Georgian style. Land beside the city and the afternoon and evening are free for you to explore at leisure. Bath is easy to walk around, especially considering your five-star hotel is on the Royal Crescent, the city's premier address. Feel the salubrious thermal waters that have been coveted for two millennia, gaze out across the elegant columns and high ceilings, and get lost in a city that's fully preserved as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Today is perhaps the most serene day of flying, the helicopter swooping along the west coast of England. Watch as hills tumble into the Irish Sea and mist floats across the valleys of the Welsh borders. For close to an hour, there are no cities, just the mesmerizing rurality of Herefordshire, Shropshire, and the Brecon Beacons. With the pilot sticking to the coast, you fly in low past Liverpool, another World Heritage city, its port still emanating old maritime promise. Keep flying, the propellers turning and the hills rising higher as you enter the Lake District. Blue stretches of water fill the views, hiding amongst a patchwork of slopes and curves. It's easy to appreciate the volcanic history; only a natural phenomenon could explain this phantasmal landscape. Some 500 million years after its creation, this stretch of green and blue continues to compel and confound. You'll land near Ullswater Lake, an idyllic place for walking through rural villages and catching a steamboat across the water. Seeing the peaks from the rippling waters of Ullswater provides a view to complement the helicopter window.

The further you fly north, the further the landscapes rebel. They appear unruly and primitive, stretches of land that cascade without pattern or plan. It's just about as close to wilderness as you can find in Europe, even if it's dappled with the white speckles of sheep. Fly above Hadrian's Wall, crossing into Scotland and roving along the remote western coast. Edinburgh almost comes as a shock, a belt of manmade landscape revealing the fumes of industry and development. Edinburgh Castle dominates, standing on a hill above the city, delighting in its power over the populace. This is Scotland's most famous attraction, and you have the prime view. Touching down close to Edinburgh, you check into your hotel before enjoying a free afternoon in the Scottish capital.

Scotland's landscape seems to come from a fairytale. Almost everywhere you look, north of Edinburgh, you find the iconic spread of mountains, glens, and lochs (lakes). The whiskey advertisements don't lie; Scotland really does look like this. Fields of heather stretch out with abandon, steep hills tumble into the lochs, and mountain peaks are omnipresent, yet somehow, never getting any closer. Sporadically, like a phantom, something manmade appears. And it's equally beautiful. Castle Stuart Golf Course provides manicured fairways amongst wild surroundings; Inverness and Urquhart castles unveil an old grandeur, then Culloden Viaduct impresses with its innovative engineering.

These sights fall into the background as the most famous of Scotland's lochs comes into view. Stretching out beneath the helicopter window is Loch Ness, home to the myth and legend of its monster. It can't possibly be real. Or could it? The landscape's mystique quickly pulls you into a realm of fairytales and fictitious happenings. If a monster lived anywhere, it would surely be in this loch, surrounded by the curls of mist and sense of the surreal. Today's flight lands at Inverness, the capital of the Scottish Highlands that's centered on the sublime St. Andrew's Cathedral. The rest of the day is free, and if the weather is good, head out to Nairn, a blinding expanse of white sand that extends beneath rugged cliffs. Even if the sun isn't out, this is one of Great Britain's finest beaches.

Now back south, skirting the east coast of the island and flying above raw untrammeled cliffs. Beaches are hidden, lost behind the curves of the countryside. Isolated stately homes appear in clearings before the hills start over, and you're lost in new expressions of undulating green. Fly over the Yorkshire Dales and land in York. Walking into the city, you enter a warren of medieval streets, the buildings leaning over the walkways and the doors opening into traditional tea rooms. Flamboyant in its style, York Minster is the largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe, a premier highlight of your two hours exploring the city. Return to the air and soar along, the landscape flattening until you're back amongst the calming pastures of the South. You land for the final time, in Cambridge, a second famous university city. A walking tour reveals the history of the city, and then you go punting – essentially floating down the river in a wooden boat, with a punnet of strawberries and a hamper of champagne.

Today, you take to higher skies, an international flight soaring high above the clouds as you head home. After breakfast, you'll be transferred to the airport for your flight.