France Art architecture Trips

The itinerary was exhaustive with many unique sights included. Our favorite was Chamonix Mont Blanc which lived up to its reputation!! This trip provided the perfect blend of structured group activities and solo discovery time.

We saw so much of France. We were busy every minute of the day, not much time to relax. But we took the trip to see the country and that we did.

It was as advertised - fast paced , with lots of walking …. We were prepared for it , but marveled at those with difficulties and using canes who were in our group and seemed to have no idea regarding walking

It is lovely to visit the country area as it is not as busy as the city although there are still tourist it is not a place you need to rush. I do think that you need to spend at least 2 full days to see some of the villages.

We felt rushed a few days with the itinerary. Could easily add another day in Paris. Maybe some beach time along the French Riviera. Stephane was an excellent tour guide. Our bus driver was very talented to navigate many of the roads/streets we were on.

We had a great time on this tour of France and Barcelona. We especially enjoyed our dinner at Beatrice’s farm outside of Tours. Lyon was wonderful also. We loved visiting Avignon & would have enjoyed more time there. it would have been nice to see more of the Papal palace. Our hotel in Nice was great and the location was amazing. We took the optional tour to the mountain top village of Saint Paul de Vence & loved it so much. We also loved going to Arles and seeing the Roman ruins and learning about Van Gogh’s time there. During our free time we had a delicious lunch at “the Creperie” sitting by the Gardens once painted by Vincent Van Gogh. As we continued our journey on.. we really loved seeing Carcassone and our hotel location had a fabulous view of the castle. We took a little walk on the bridge after dinner that evening & it was beautiful As we moved on to Spain, we really enjoyed our stop to visit the Salvador Dali museum in Figuero. His art is outrageous. It was really fascinating & crazy! In Barcelona, we got to see the outside of the famous Sagrada Familia cathedral. It was amazing. I only wish we had been allowed to go inside. We loved the optional dinner and. Flamenco performance. The dinner buffet was awesome- so many delicious things to try. And the flamenco performance was fabulous. I am sorry to say though, a very disappointing thing about our time in Barcelona was that we didn’t get to see more of Antoni Gaudi’s works. I wish Trafalgar would replace the optional La Rambla & instead take us to visit Antoni Gaudi’s creations Parc Guell & Casa Batilo. I felt that missing those two things was a huge mistake on this tour- it was really disappointing. The last night on the way to our farewell dinner we got a brief glimpse as the bus drove quickly past Casa Batilo.. It was sad for us. In the brochure one of the pictures they showed was an image of the Casa Batilo, which gave the impression that we would get to really see it. I wish we had known that we weren’t going to see more of Gaudi’s works while we were there. We would have added an extra day to do it on our own.