England has made so many cultural, literary, artistic and musical contributions that we can't come close to fitting 1% of them in this tiny space. Why England is the home of William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Agatha Christie, David Bowie, Thomas More, Virginia Woolf, J. K. Rowling, Mary Shelley, Beatrix Potter, Alfred Hitchcock, J. R. R. Tolkien, Geoffrey Chaucer, Daniel Defoe, Lord Byron and Lewis Carroll – just to name a few!

While the English are often ridiculed for their gastronomy, we encourage you to see for yourself that you can eat extremely well while on vacation in England! Traditionally, its cuisine has relied on fresh produce and rather simple techniques. However, recently the culinary scene has undergone something of a revival and the result is amazingly tasty. Many chefs are creating innovative twists on old classics. In cities like London, home to some of the world's best chefs and a very multicultural populace, you can find an incredibly cosmopolitan, international restaurant scene. Local comfort-food and pub classics to try include shepherd's pie, toad-in-the-hole, salt-and-vinegar doused fish and chips, Yorkshire pudding, Cornish pastry and bangers and mash.

The country of England consists of the central and southern portions of the island of Great Britain as well as numerous smaller islands. It lies to the south of Scotland and to the east of Wales. It is only separated from France in continental Europe by very a narrow, 20-mile stretch of sea. Its countryside and gardens are famed throughout the world with scenic landscapes provided by the rural beauty of the Cotswolds, the Lake District, the Peak District, the Yorkshire Dales, the New Forest, Cumbrian Mountains, the North York Moors and the Jurassic Coast, a spectacular UNESCO World Heritage Site.

England's history is a colorful, multidimensional tapestry of thousands of years. Visitors traveling to England today can still visit important Neolithic monuments like Stonehenge and Avebury, both of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Impressive structures dating back to the Romans still stand like Hadrian's Wall and the thermal baths in Bath. The country's heritage has been molded by its native Briton, Germanic, Scandinavian and Norman-French inhabitants, and events that began in England, like the Industrial Revolution, the colonization of North America's East Coast, and the release of the Beatles' debut album took the world by storm.

Visitors today have such a tremendous variety of interesting historical attractions, that we can't possibly do it justice. A few of our favorite historical attractions include medieval Warwick Castle, Battle Abbey (the site of the 11th-century Battle of Hastings), Hampton Court Palace, Windsor Castle, the Tower of London, the Cotswolds' Corinium Museum, Westminster Abbey and Salisbury Cathedral.