Balkans Train Trips

It was an excellent itinerary with the exception of the Monaco stop during the Grand Prix week. We couldn’t really see anything due to roads being closed. The trip director was excellent though doing everything he could to get us to see what he could.

The Simply Japan tour by Explore is a fantastic introduction to Japan, its history, culture, and cuisine. The tour covers lots of ground travelling by train, and we visited lots of different localities. We were blessed to have a wonderful knowledgeable Tour Leader who quite frankly, brought Japan to life for us. Highly recommended.

The itinerary was very good; the towns, sites visited and optional tours were a good introduction to Switzerland. The one recommendation I would offer is to replace one night in St. Moritz with an additional night in Zurich.

The one thing I would suggest is replacing the day that included a short boat ride without narration and a tour of Geneva. We found this to be the most uninteresting day of the tour. I would like to have spent another night in Lugano or a night in Stresa and seen more in one of those areas. Driving around looking a UN or government buildings was pretty boring. I also feel that too many of the best parts of the trip came at an additional cost as the best excursions were optional. I believe these (Klein Matterhorn and Jungfraujoch) should be part of the tour. I realize this would increase the cost of the tour. It just seemed that there were too many entire afternoons or says that had no included activities for a fairly pricey upscale tour. We enjoyed the tour very much though and Sue did a marvelous job. I will definitely consider Insight Travel strongly for future travel.

Loved this tour, it covered all the major sites for a first time visitor and left some free time to follow your own preferences. Tour leader was EXCELLENT and so knowledgeable. Transport links worked fine, we did not have our own tour bus, we used public transport and occasionally sent our luggage on by road, that worked fine. A great trip!

The tour manager, Clare Martin, was wonderful. She was organized, engaged and informative. I loved her Canadian music choices, information on Canada and the movie she made of Canadian foods.