Roman Tours are organising this year’s Minerva Festival to be held on Sunday 31^st May 2009; starting at 11am through to 5pm.

Chester is home to the only remaining shrine, still at its original site, dedicated to the goddess Minerva and located in the UK. The city is the proud host of an annual festival devoted to Minerva.

Roman Tours Ltd have organised a military parade to the site of the shrine in Edgar’s Field with further events to enjoy, free of charge, at the Grosvenor Museum.

The Parade will start from the Cross, at 12 noon, marching through the city of Chester to Edgar’s Field.  Experience the highlight of the Minerva Festival with the Roman Tours Ltd recreation of a dedication to Minerva. This will be held at 3pm at the shrine.

See Chester’s Roman history come alive with dancers and ancient crafts for all the family to enjoy.

Minerva is the name the Romans gave to the Athena: Greek virgin goddess of poetry, warriors, crafts, weaving, medicine, inventor of music as well as wisdom and commerce.

In Greek mythology Athena is hailed as the ‘shrewd companion of heroes and the goddess of heroic endeavour’.

The festival of Minerva was celebrated by the Romans from 19^th to 23^rd March; with 19^th March being the Quinquatiria Festival, or ‘fifth day after the Ides’.

Romans worshipped Minerva, the daughter of Jupiter, in all her different goddess forms and as part of the Capitoline Triad with the addition of Jupiter and Juno.

You can visit the Minerva Shrine at Edgar’s Field Park in Handbridge, Chester any day of the year.

The Grosvenor Museum also contains a cast of the Minerva Shrine as part of their collection of Roman tombstones; the largest collection in any single exhibition in Britain.

Roman Tours Ltd has been established since 1997 and thoroughly embraces the intriguing Roman history of the city of Chester.

It is the pleasure of Roman Tours to bring to life, with professional and historical accuracy, the events of Roman Chester in Chester and around the northwest of England.

Visit Roman Tours Ltd website – and find out more about fantastic re-enactment events at the Chester Roman amphitheatre

Directory of Chester (dochesteruk) is a proud follower of Roman Tours (Roman Tours) at Twitter.

 

Cestrians are rightly proud of their city.  And now there’s a great new way for visitors to Chester to discover some of the characters and events that have made the city what it is today.

 

The Chester Revealed audio tour is 1.7 miles (2.7km) long and can be completed in two hours, though listeners have the freedom to take as long as they wish to explore the sights along the tour’s route.

 

The Chester Walk Talk Tour guide is a circular tour, beginning and ending outside the Chester Town Hall, composed of commentary points.  Listeners are asked at the beginning of their tour to follow instructions to a given commentary point.  They will also have a free downloadable map to help navigate from A to B. Listeners then receive instructions on a separate track informing them how to reach their next commentary point.  The narrator of the tour, Jonathan Keeble, will ask listeners to press PAUSE while they walk from one point to the next and then press PLAY when they arrive there.

 

Should the weather take a turn for the worse, or a listener’s appetite or interest intervene they can simply pause their audio downloadable tour guide and then resume it later.  With the Walk Talk Tour Chester Revealed audio guide there is no timetable to adhere to.  You’re the boss.

 

The Chester Revealed audio tour also features a welcome to the city by David Mitchell, half of the world’s only husband and wife town crying team.  Both David and his wife, Julie, are award winning town criers.

 

Listeners to the Chester Revealed audio guide will hear about the origins of the Rows – the unique system of public galleries that run uninterrupted through the front of buildings in the city’s historic heart.  Hear how the Grosvenor family became one of the most powerful land owning dynasties in Britain.  Discover where a famous Beatle’s grandmother was born.  Take a stroll along part of the city’s walls – the most complete city walls in England.  Learn of Roman ingenuity and barbarity.  Enjoy seeing and hearing about the second most photographed timepiece in the world, the Eastgate Clock.  Hear of characters that enlivened life at Chester Cathedral.  Return to the city walls, passing the Phoenix Tower.  Descend the city walls at the Northgate, once the site of a notorious prison, before heading down to the Town Hall where you began your tour.

 

In download format the Chester Revealed tour costs £5.  Two people can legitimately listen to the tour for £5.

 

Visitors without the wherewithal to listen to the Chester Revealed audio guide can hire it from the Tourist Information Centre, in the Town Hall, on Northgate Street, for £6.  Visitors are also asked to pay a £10 deposit which is refunded once the tour, neck phones and laminated copy of the tour map have been returned.

 

 

Directory of Chester (dochesteruk) is proud to follow WalkWalkTours on Twitter.