GETAWAY Discover days out that all the family will enjoy
iconic costumes, never-before-seen images and film footage, and instruments played by the legends. Watch for holograms of the big names, including Boy George singing Karma Chameleon, turn rock star in the interactive studio, and dance through the decades. Highlights include costumes worn by the late David Bowie and the Spice Girls, handwritten Adele lyrics, letters from Buddy Holly, and guitars owned by Noel Gallagher and others. WE ALL want to make money, but now you can take it to extremes – and without breaking the law.
Take a tour of The Royal Mint Experience at Llantrisant, near Cardiff, the only place in the world where you can watch the UK’s coins being made.
A 45-minute guided factory tour takes you through the Mint, amid the sight, sounds and smells of thousands of glistening new coins hot off the press.
You’ll have the chance to strike your very own coin at the end, and there’s also a fascinating interactive exhibition to see.
As a bonus, get up, close and personal to Olympic and Paralympic IT’S A big year for Victoria watchers, both on the small screen and at the cinema – with two takes on the memorable monarch on the way.
Jenna Coleman will return in the critically acclaimed TV series Victoria, and there’s a self-guided tour at Castle Howard in York, which doubles as Kensington Palace.
Taking in iconic scenes from the show, it also showcases others filmed at the historic house.
Down on the Isle of Wight, Osborne House is getting in on the act, too, as the setting for new movie Victoria and Abdul, telling the story of the Queen’s friendship with a young Indian clerk.
It’s going to be a big movie, with Judi Dench playing the monarch. Queen Victoria would have been amused.
IT’S where, briefly in 2012, Britannia ruled the world once more. Five years on (how time flies!) you can go behind the scenes at the London Stadium, formerly known as the Olympic Stadium. Now home to Premier League outfit West Ham and UK athletics, a tour will take you into the changing rooms, the indoor running track, players’ tunnel, pitchside, and manager’s dugout. Each visitor is provided with a hand-held device packed with interactive video content to bring the experience to life, and set your visit in context. And, of course, there are unique photo opportunities as well as a free personalised certificate at the end of the tour. If you’re a football fan, then tours are available at many clubs including Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Tottenham, Arsenal and Everton. DON your overalls, check the lamp on your hard hat, then travel 500ft into the Llechwedd Slate Caverns. So far, so routine.
But new interactive technology lets you have a go with the miners’ drills, lay a fuse and set off your very own blast 300ft underground.
Then there’s the Bounce Below trampolining experience – just one of the adventures on offer at Zip World and up above, more adventure with an hour-long trip in a military 4x4 to the very top of the mine – and at 1,400ft, the views are spectacular.
You travel along challenging tracks made especially for the journey, and even into massive holes made when the roofs were blasted off century-old caverns.
They’ve been mining here since 1836 but you can get bang up to date on zip lines that let you fly across the quarry, too. EXPERIENCE rugby’s greats and the moments that defined the sport at the new, state-of-the-art World Rugby Hall of Fame – in the town where the game began, Rugby in Warwickshire. The newly opened World Rugby Hall of Fame offers a journey through time using HD touchscreen technology, from the game’s humble origins to the global present day sport played by 7.7 million men, women and children. Learn about the 132 Hall of Famers, and all 121 World Rugby national unions, understand the variations of the sport, and relive classic moments. It’s based in the heart of Rugby town centre – just a few yards from the place where William Webb Ellis first took the ball and ran with it – on the first floor of the striking Rugby Art Gallery and Museum. What’s more, and it’s an increasing rarity these days, admission is free.