#visitor-information

#visitor-information

The charming Amersham fairground organ museum, which is usually open a few Sundays per year, has now started offering guided tours. The occasional open days are more a chance to sit and listen to the old fair organs playing their pipes, and have a nice lunch at the same time. However, the guided tours, which will take place on Saturdays, will offer a deeper dive into their collection of organs and the music cards that control them.

While it's quieter than usual, Hampton Court Palace offers half-price tickets for a few weeks during January and February. The half-price tickets include entry to all open public areas of the palace, including the Great Hall and Henry VIII's Kitchens. The half-price offer runs from 7th January to 8th February 2026.

Buckingham Palace will resume tours of the usually private East Wing in the new year, the front from which the royals are seen on the balcony. The summer opening mainly focuses on the state rooms on the west wing of the palace, and they only started occasional tours of the east wing in 2024. It's not cheap though, as the 90-minute tours are designed to give you a more in-depth look at the East Wing, at a time when the Palace is not usually open to the public.

Southwest Colorado, where the Rocky Mountains give way to canyons and mesas, is home to one of the most intimate places you can connect with ancient history in the United States. In Mesa Verde National Park, you'll find elaborate villages tucked beneath sandstone overhangs. These cliff dwellings were built by the Ancestral Pueblo people and date back more than 700 years. The historic structures provide a rare glimpse into a civilization that built complex homes, ceremonial kivas, and irrigation systems.

The Hampstead Observatory is one of the few observatories in London open to the public for stargazing, and weather permitting, it is reopening this weekend. The observatory's main telescope sates from 1923 and ideal for viewing the Moon, planets and double stars. As long as the skies are clear, you might get to see Saturn's rings, Jupiter's cloud belts, the craters and mountains on the Moon and some of the brighter 'deep sky' objects - star clusters, nebulae and the odd galaxy.

The diamonds formed under extreme pressure and heat deep in the Earth's mantle. If you find one, it will most likely look like a metallic or glassy pebble rather than a sparkly cut gem that you might picture in your mind. The volcanic soil also contains amethyst, garnet, jasper, agate, and various types of quartz (and you can keep those, too).

Visitors can now enjoy a special opportunity to climb St Paul's Cathedral's dome on Sundays without needing to purchase an entire cathedral ticket, available until September 2025.

"Tioga Road will open for the season to all traffic on Monday, May 26, at 8 am. Limited services will be available along Tioga Road; bring your own appropriate levels of food and water."