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The Cloth and Stone Tour to Gujarat

This tour is designed take guests to the source of some of India’s best traditional textiles as well as a variety of architectural styles from ancient cities and caves to more recent palaces and havelis. Hence the name: The Cloth & Stone Tour.

Cloth and stone are two important elements that map human history.
The first use of textiles, dates back to the late Stone Age, roughly 100,000 years ago. The earliest instances of cotton, silk and linen begin to appear around 5,000 BC in India, Egypt and China.  India played an important role in what is now known as The Silk Road – the trade routes between China and the west.  Textile traditions have defined cultural identity throughout history, and this process is a living reality in places like Kachchh (Kutch) in Gujarat, where the distinctive styles of textile decoration tell the stories of the communities they come from.

The diversity of Indian culture is represented in its architecture. It is a blend of ancient and varied native traditions, with building types, forms and technologies from West and Central Asia, as well as Europe.  On our tour, we visit (and sometimes stay in) a variety of structures including carved limestone caves, an old Portuguese fort, an ancient ruined city,  wattle and daub bhungas (conical cottages), old city neighbourhoods, walled cities with elephant-deterring gates, water harvesting architecture, Indo-European palaces, sacred buildings, havelis and faux Art Deco.

India is an artist’s paradise, and this tour presents a rare opportunity to see landscapes, animals, villages and people not often visited by tourists, so pack your sketchbooks and cameras!

There will be a wealth of inspiration for students of architecture or anyone interested in making or collecting textiles.

The trip is planned for winter in India – when the weather is cool and pleasant.  Most of the places we go to are off the beaten track and away from the maddening crowds. We will stay is a variety of accommodation including heritage hotels, luxury tents, former palaces and traditional dwellings.

There will be a maximum of 6 people on the tour travelling in our own comfortable air-conditioned vehicle, so we can stop at will to take in the sights and experience the wonder that is India at ground level.  The landscapes we will pass through include villages, cities, grasslands, vast salt deserts and beaches.

 

Average temperatures during our tour: 8 to 23 degrees Celsius

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Due to Covid19 travel restrictions, there are no tour dates or prices available at the present.