I researched at great length to find "the right guide" to introduce us to Bath, Stonehenge and the area in general. From the opening email discussions it was clear that Andy was a sound communicator with rapid email turnarounds that soon locked in the tour.
On the day of the tour Andy collected us from Bristol in his very clean Range Rover and he'd included water in case we needed it during the day. Immediately we found Andy to be a fellow of great humour and it was very easy to strike up a good chat with him. This worked well for us because we like to let our guides know that they have the freedom to show us what they perceive we'd like to see and we weren't disappointed.
The tour of Bath started with a quick orientation tour in Andy's car, a look a buildings and items of note that we would not get to during the walk, and then we parked and started the tour on foot. Andy was born in Bath and although he's travelled the world he has returned home to start this venture after a career with companies such as Airbus. Therefore his knowledge expanded to many worldly topics when we stopped to chat quickly about random items.
It was clear that Andy could talk at length about the 4000 year history of Bath, and he made stops at locations and neatly slotted them in their place in that very long history. He also took us into areas such as the Assembly Rooms and small museums and chapels that you would not normally see, as well as the inner city and the new city that expanded outside the original walled city area.
Because we were from Australia he took a side tour to St Nicholas Church in Bathampton to see the grave of Admiral Arthur Phillip, the founder of the first colony in Australia and our first Governor. We concluded at Bath with a lovely lunch and we were pleased to see that Andy was happy to sit and chat with us during lunch because many guides leave you at this time; so this made the tour all that more personal.
We experienced the same level of detailed knowledge at Stonehenge and then to his credit, and in his own time, instead of just dropping us off at out hotel in Bristol, Andy took us for a driving tour around Bristol so we could also appreciate the city in which we were staying.
It was the highlight of our 3 week tour of the UK for my wife, and you will be very hard to find another guide with his knowledge and great personality.