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19 days (17 full days), Western and Central
France
Thursday, September 3, 2009 to Monday, September 21, 2009
Land package: €2895, based on minimum 20 people. Single supplement €750.
All-inclusive except some lunches. A commitment and deposit of €500
were required no
later than October 15, 2008 in order to secure the hotels which
require deposits, and reserve certain attractions. (All prices in euros.)
France is basically a rural country with very few large cities. Outside
of Paris, surprisingly only Lyons and Marseilles have populations of much
more than one million. It is also a country built of stone, and each area
(called a department) is very diverse. Observe the differences in
architecture and different colours of the stonework in each area, and
enjoy the specialties of cooking in each part of the country.
Unlike my previous tours, not all dinners are
included. Apparently, it is unusual to include most dinners on tours of
France, as there is so much choice in menus that clients prefer not to be
confined to certain items.
The tour is led by Margaret Rodgers.
RECOMMENDED - taking enough euros with you as it can be more
difficult to find ATM's in smaller places.
RECOMMENDED - whenever possible, we will pick up a drink,
baguette and cheese or pate for lunch, as lunches are relatively expensive
and service is slow.
RECOMMENDED - taking an extra digital card for your digital
camera, and the correct battery re-charger. Or if you are still using
film, make sure to take enough with you: film is much more expensive in
Europe.
RECOMMENDED - Souvenirs are often specific to each area, so we
suggest that if you see something you really desire, buy it there, as you
may not see it again.
Included in the price:
- Airport transfers for those arriving and leaving with the group
- Accommodation and transportation
- All breakfasts and 13 dinners
- Admission to all attractions as per the Itinerary
- Local guides at specialized attractions, where necessary
- Coach with driver changes
Not included:
- 4 dinners
- Lunches
- Alcoholic beverages
- Personal requirements, e.g. Laundry
- Airfare and related taxes
- All insurance
- Porterage
- Gratuities for driver and tour leader
Day 1/2 (Thur/Fri)
Depart Vancouver to fly overnight to Paris.
Arrive Paris approx. __ in the morning. We drive east of Paris to Giverny
to have lunch, relax, and visit Monet's glorious Garden. We
continue to our hotel.
Overnight: Liseux, Hotel Mercure - Dinner in hotel.
Dinner & Breakfast
Day 3 (Sat)
An easy day to recover from your flight. We set off for the lovely
Normandy seaside town of Honfleur, with its quaint old harbour and
narrow cobbled streets. It was originally a small fishing village that
became a popular tourist town as a result of many famous impressionist
painters visiting and painting the local scenes. After checking into the
hotel we will have a short walking tour to see the quaint 17th century
Vieux Bassin Harbour, Place St.-Catherine, with its wood-shingled clock
tower, and the 15th-16th Century Eglise Ste.-Catherine, which, very
unusual for France, is made entirely out of wood. The rest of the day is free
to explore this delightful small town.
Overnight: Honfleur, Hotel Antares - Dinner in
hotel. Dinner & Breakfast
Day 4 (Sun)
We drive along the coast road, via some of the attractive Normandy
resorts: the twin towns of Trouville and Deauville which compete with each
other for the title 'The Most Extravagant Norman Town,' and Houlgate, to Caen
to visit the Canadian Peace Memorial. On arrival in Bayeux, we
visit the famous 11th-century Bayeux tapestry, depicting William
the Conqueror's invasion of England, before checking into our hotel.
Bayeux: Novotel Bayeux Rond-Pont de Vaucelles
First of 2 nights in Bayeux - Dinner in hotel. Dinner &
Breakfast
Day 5 (Mon)
Depart 8:30 for a tour of the D-Day Beaches where, in the
pre-dawn darkness of June 6, 1944, thousands of paratroopers of the US and
British air-born divisions dropped from the skies near Cabourg to distract
the Germans from the seaborne troops which landed on the five beaches
designated as Omaha, Utah, Sword, Gold and Juno.
We visit Arromanches 360 degrees circular theatre to see
the film The Price of Freedom, before making our way towards Omaha
Beach, where most of the American casualties occurred on D-Day. We
stop at Longues-sur-Mer to see the last remnants of Hitler's
Atlantic Wall, and Coleville-sur-Mer to walk in the sombre 172-acre
American Cemetery where endless rows of white crosses mark the
graves of almost 10,000 men buried there (yet only 40% of the number who
died). A memorial at the east end of the cemetery is adorned by the statue
The Spirit of the American Youth. Further along, at Utah Beach,
on the morning of D-Day, 225 American Rangers scaled the sheer 100-ft
cliffs of Pointe de Hoc. Only half made it to the top. We finish at
Beny-sur-Mer to see the Canadian Cemetery, and return to
Bayeux.
Back in Bayeux we can drop off those who wish to see the Cathedrale
Notre Dame, Bayeux's magnificent Gothic cathedral begun in the
11th-century. It has beautiful stained glass windows and a fascinating
Romanesque crypt with pillars decorated with angels.
Last of 2 nights in Bayeux - Dinner on own.
Breakfast
Day 6 (Tue)
We continue for a special English-speaking tour of Mont St.-Michel,
the famous dramatic, yet delicate, abbey atop a 92-metre mound of rock a
short distance off the Brittany coast. The dangerous racing tides are well
known, coming almost to the edge of the narrow causeway leading to the
Mount where, in the past, many visitors have lost their cars parked on the
beach! According to legend, in 708 AD the Archangel Michael appeared in a
dream to Archbishop Aubert of Avranches and commanded him to build an
abbey on the island. From then until the 16th century, a succession of
Romanesque and Gothic buildings have resulted in the jumbled buildings now
standing on the rock.
We continue through St. Malo, for a scenic coastal drive of the
resorts of Dinard, St. Lunaire, Briac-sur-Mer and Ploubalay
and return to St. Malo to check into our lovely hotel within the city
walls.
St. Malo: Hotel Central
First of 2 nights in St. Malo - Dinner in hotel. Dinner &
Breakfast
Day 7 (Wed)
Driver's "rest day." We depart about 9:00 am for a
walking tour around the magnificent walls of St. Malo and into the
charmingly restored interior of this fortified medieval town at the north
end of the Brittany coast, with its unusual four and five-storey
buildings. The rest of the day is free to explore St. Malo….or
For those who are interested, we can arrange to take an optional side
trip to nearby Dinan (sister city of Quebec City), one of the
largest preserved medieval towns in Brittany, surrounded by 700-year old
ramparts and noted as being "one of the most exquisite towns in
Brittany." We can walk down the steep streets to the River Rance, and
enjoy the fascinating medieval buildings which look as if they have
stepped straight out of the pages of a fairy-tale book.
Last of 2 nights in St. Malo. Dinner &
Breakfast
Day 8 (Thur)
Depart early for Angers, the western gateway to the Loire
Valley. The Chateau d'Angers is very different from other
chateaux in the Loire. It has forbidding black slate walls usually used
for roofs, and towers topped with white tuffa stone usually used for
walls. It was literally thrown together in ten short years during the 13th
century to defend the gateway from the English. We see the stunning Tenture
de l'Apocalypse, the oldest preserved tapestry in the world.
Commissioned by Louis I, duke of Anjou, and completed between 1375 and
1380, this 328-ft.wool-and-gold-thread masterpiece depicts scenes from The
Book of the Revelation. It is remarkable because the back side is
exactly the same as the front. In the 1800's it was hacked to pieces
because it muffled the singing voices, but fortunately in 1848 a very
patient church member put it together again.
We have a photo stop for the Chateau de Saumur before continuing
to check in to our hotel in Tours, after which we have a short
walking tour of Tours Old Town.
Tours: Hotel de L'Univers
First of 3 nights in Tours - Dinner in hotel. Dinner & Breakfast
Day 9 (Fri)
Our first visit is to Chateau de Chambord, the largest chateau
in the Loire Valley. Set in 5,500 acres, with 440 rooms and 365
fireplaces, this was meant to be just a hunting lodge for Francois I who
started work on it in 1519 and never stopped until he was completely
broke.
We continue to visit the Chateau de Cheverny with a special
guide, an unusually warm and luxuriously furnished chateau with displays
of priceless Delft vases, Gobelin tapestries and Persian embroidery. The
grounds include a hunting reserve, a trophy room of 2,000 antlers, and an
orangery where the Mona Lisa and other art treasures were hidden during
World War II. Hopefully, we will be there at a time when they feed their
large number of hunting dogs.
After lunch we depart to visit the gorgeous Chateau de Chenonceaux,
with an audio guide. Accessed by a long tree-lined driveway leading to
lovely formal gardens, this elegant building literally straddles the Cher
River. Known as the prettiest chateau in the Loire region (or the Chateau
of the Ladies, as it was completely overseen by women), it has a string of
sunlit galleries overlooking the water. The main body of the chateau was
built between 1513 and 1521, then Henry II's mistress, Diane de Poitiers,
added part of the chateau as a bridge across the river for easy access to
her hunting grounds. The bridge galleries served as a field hospital
during World War I and as an escape point for the French Resistance during
World War II.
We can then spend some time in Chenonceaux village, reputed to be the
prettiest in the Loire Valley, before the chance of going to dinner at a
special restaurant, La Rosaire, reputed to be "the best restaurant
in France."
Second of 3 nights in Tours - Dinner on own in
Chenonceaux. Breakfast
Day 10 (Sat)
First, today, we go to the small town of Langeais to visit the
charming small Chateau de Langeais which is unusual in having been
built in the 15th-century by Louis XI within a 5-year period and for
having remained completely unaltered ever since then, and also is entered
right from the main street - no long driveway!
Our next stop, the incredible and spectacular gardens of the Chateau
Villandry, is surely one of the most magnificent examples of French
formal gardens in the world - where 'seeing is believing.'
We continue to the attractive town of Amboise with its lovely
Chateau towering above the town. First built in the 15th century, it has a
very colourful history, and the delightful church of St. Hubert within the
chateau grounds is reputed to be the burial place of Leonardo da Vinci who
spent the last three years of his life in Amboise. Some free time
to enjoy the ambience and perhaps purchase one of the tapestries the area
is known for (you don't find them easily anywhere else in France), before
it is time to meet for the opportunity to have dinner in a very special
restaurant built into a troglodyte cave at the edge of the River Loire.
Last of 3 nights in Tours - Dinner on own in a troglodyte
cave. Breakfast
Day 11 (Sun)
Today is mainly a driving day to relocate in the Dordogne, a beautiful
part of France chock full of riverside chateaux, medieval villages,
prehistoric sites, and particularly magnificent scenery honeycombed with
deep gorges and caves filled with prehistoric paintings.
Our first Dordogne experience is in Sarlat-la-Caneda, a
beautifully-preserved medieval town of golden stone houses with
Renaissance-style, wood-beamed windows. We have some free
time to relax and explore this lovely old town before continuing to our
delightful hotel in one of the Vezere region's lovely villages.
Overnight Le Bugue: Hotel Royal Vezere - Dinner in
hotel. Dinner & Breakfast
Day 12 (Mon)
We visit one of the most important caves in the area, the Font de
Gaume, a showpiece of Magdalenian engravings and paintings from around
14,000 BC. Although there are 250 paintings altogether, the visitor can
only see 30 of the most beautiful and best preserved ones. You can
identify mammoths, bisons and reindeer, and what makes the paintings so
special is that the animals were carved and then painted inside the
carving. Two colours are used - black for male animals and red for
females.
We continue to the village of Les Eyzies de Tayac which rests
under a huge limestone cliff into which is built the Musée National de
Préhistoire. After visiting this fascinating and unusual Museum we
continue for lunch and a visit to the Grotte de Grand Roc, its
entrance situated half-way up a huge cliff.
After lunch we continue along the Dordogne River to see some of the
amazing medieval villages which are built quite spectacularly into the
sides of the huge cliffs overlooking the river - Beynac and le Roque
Gagneac where we have photo stops. If we have time, we can also have a
photo stop in the cliff-top, fortified village of Domme for a
panoramic view of the Dordogne valley.
Souillac: La Vielle Auberge
First of 2 nights in Souillac - Dinner in hotel. Dinner &
Breakfast
Day 13 (Tue)
A full day touring some the fabulous and prettiest villages of the
Dordogne area. We see the dramatic cliff-hanging village of Rocamadour,
the delightful villages of Autoire and Loubrissac, and visit
the stunning Gouffre de Padirac, an enormous cave in which we
travel by boat with a special guide.
Last of 2 nights in Souillac. Dinner &
Breakfast
Day 14 (Wed)
Depart 8:30 for Cahors at the western end of the Lot Valley, to
see its elegant Pont Valentré, a tall, elegant bridge with towers
that have spanned the Lot since 1360. We visit the amazing Grotte du
Pech-Merle with wonderful and very different cave paintings from Font
de Gaume. After lunch we continue, via Cordes-sur-Ciel, a fortified
town built on a hilltop with a collection of magnificient Gothic style
houses unique in France, to Albi, home of Toulouse Lautrec.
Overnight: Albi, Grand Hotel - Dinner in hotel.
Dinner & Breakfast
Day 15 (Thur)
We start today at the impressive Cathedral Ste-Cecile built of
brick, with its interior entirely decorated with the most unusual
geometric designs! Then we visit the Musée de Toulouse-Lautrec
(don't miss the garden at the back by the river).
After lunch we depart for Carcassonne, a UNESCO-designated World
Heritage Site, on the banks of the River Aude. Built on a hill overlooking
a lush green valley, Carcassonne's 13th-century, fortified old town has
been described as "the greatest sandcastle ever built." The
earliest sections of the city wall were built by the Romans in the 1st
century BC. It was later enlarged into a true fortress, and strengthened
by Louis IX, in the 13th century, to give it its present appearance.
Restaurants and stores are scattered among a wealth of winding cobbled
streets, turrets and towers. Our hotel is situated in the heart of this
lovely medieval city.
Carcassonne: Hotel Le Donjon
First of 2 nights in Carcassonne - Dinner in hotel. Dinner &
Breakfast
Day 16 (Fri)
Driver's rest day. After a short orientation walking tour, the
rest of the day is a Free day to explore Carcassonne.
Last of 2 nights in Carcassonne - Dinner on own.
Breakfast
Day 17 (Sat)
Breakfast in hotel
We depart for the Central Massif area of France via the fabulous new Bridge
over Milau. On Autoroute A75 from Paris to Barcelona this is the
highest bridge in the world - 343m high, and 2.5 km long. At its highest
point, it is higher than the Eiffel Tower. It opened in December 2004,
after taking 39 months to build at a cost of approx. 310 billion euros.
We continue to the Auvergne, a beautiful yet relatively little-known
part of France, noted for its many volcanoes. The medieval town of Saint-Flour
is perched atop one of the Auvergne's highest volcanic outcrops, and the
views of the surrounding countryside from this small high town are spectacular.
Overnight: St. Flour, Grand Hotel de l'Europe - Dinner in
hotel. Dinner & Breakfast
Day 18 (Sun)
Breakfast in the hotel
Depart for a leisurely drive back to Paris near Charles de Gaulle Airport.
Overnight: Nr Paris, Novotel Aulnay sous Bois - Dinner in
hotel. Dinner & Breakfast
Day 19 (Mon)
END TOUR. Breakfast in the hotel
xx:xx Depart for Charles de Gaulle Airport for flights home.
Breakfast
(Airline & flight times to be confirmed)
Note-1: If anyone wishes to stay in Paris for a few days after
the tour, please let me know, as my agent may be able to arrange this for
us. It is preferable for this after the tour as a group airfare (min.15)
usually involves the group leaving at the same time.
Note-2: Information on flight times will be sent out as soon as
we know, for those who are likely to be meeting up in Paris from locations
other than British Columbia, so that you can arrange to meet at Charles de
Gaulle Airport.
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