European Experience

You’ll arrive in London with time to follow your own curiosity after check-in, whether that means palace gates, riverside paths or the polished hush of a museum gallery. Along the Thames, you might spot a red bus passing or a black cab turning by the bridges, with the low murmur of traffic over the river. You may trace its royal past, pause over treasures gathered from across the world or settle into a neighborhood pub, where the malty scent of ale rises as a pint is pulled at the bar and the first cool sip eases you into the trip.

Your free day in London can move from glass cases and ancient stone at the British Museum to the candlelit shiver of the London Dungeon. The day is yours to explore as you please. Perhaps you wander through the West End past theater doors, painted shopfronts, gallery rooms and restaurants tucked into narrow streets. Or follow the warm, spicy scent of curry and the crackle of pans down Brick Lane. As evening settles, maybe you walk down to Soho as neon washes over restaurant windows and sidewalk tables.

After meeting your Travel Director, you leave London by coach and travel south through the Kent countryside to Dover. On the ferry to Calais, you hear the steady thrum of the engines and the Channel moving below towards France. Arriving in Paris, you can follow Montmartre, past cafe terraces where the scent of coffee mingles with warm pastry and steam curls from porcelain cups. Around its winding lanes, you trace the neighborhood where artists once worked above bistros and ateliers, with shutters, balconies and painted signs leaning into the street. At the Eiffel Tower, you stand beneath its laced ironwork before meeting your Travel Director and fellow travelers for your first evening together.

With your Travel Director, you’ll travel along Paris’s broad boulevards towards the Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Élysées, past plane trees, cream-colored façades and cafe awnings. In your free time, you might make your way to Place du Tertre, where portrait artists lean over paper and easels stand beside terrace tables. You can browse the artwork, choose something sweet from a pâtisserie or follow the scent of butter and sugar from a crêpe pan. There’s also tonight’s Optional Experience: dinner followed by a cabaret performance, with music, costume and stage light closing your Paris day on one last glittering note.

Leaving Paris, you watch the countryside broaden beyond the coach windows, with open fields, woodland and farm roofs passing on the road towards Switzerland. By Lake Lucerne, the landscape changes to clear water, mountain slopes and pale peaks rising beyond the shore. You can breathe in the clean Alpine air and listen to lake water lap against the shore.

In Lucerne, your orientation begins with the dark timber of Chapel Bridge and the painted panels overhead, then continues to the Jesuit Church, where pale walls, gilded detail and polished stone catch the light. At the Lion Monument, you stand before the wounded lion cut into sandstone above a pool of rippling water. You might browse Swiss keepsakes before today’s Optional Experience takes you up Mount Pilatus by cogwheel railway, with fir-covered slopes passing the windows. Back on the lake, you cruise across clear water, past wooded shores and high ridgelines cut against the sky.

Traveling south into Italy, you follow the road from Alpine ridgelines towards Tuscany, where cypress rows, silver-green olive groves and terracotta roofs line the route. In Florence, you arrive among honeyed stone, arched loggias and church bells, with Renaissance façades, marble chapels and palace doors. The Tuscan countryside folds around it all in soft hills. Over dinner with your fellow travelers, you savor Italy in torn bread, olive oil, herbs and the warmth of a shared table.

From Piazzale Michelangelo, you take in Florence from above, with the Arno curving between terracotta roofs and the Duomo rising across the skyline. Back in the city, you can explore Piazza della Signoria, the Duomo and Giotto’s Bell Tower or browse leather and gold shops. You may choose an Optional Experience to the Accademia, standing before Michelangelo’s David, then another Optional Experience tracing Florence’s artistic heritage and the thinkers who shaped it. Before leaving, watch Florentine craftsmanship up close during a Peruzzi leather demonstration, then travel to Rome for two days among ancient sights and lively neighborhoods.

With a Local Specialist, your morning in Rome leads to Vatican City, where you stand in St Peter’s Square beneath sweeping colonnades and the vast dome above. You may notice pigeons fluttering across the pale paving stones as voices echo across the square. The rest of the day is yours to follow Rome at your leisure, perhaps through shaded lanes, carved doorways and little counters fragrant with espresso. This evening, you may choose an Optional Experience at a local restaurant, sitting down to Roman dishes and warm bread passed across the table. Or join Local Specialist for a stroll through Rome’s piazzas, where fountain water cools the stone and gelato melts sweet and cold on your tongue.

Arriving in Venice, you leave the road behind for a private launch across the lagoon, past striped mooring poles, green water and marble façades touched by centuries of tide. Near St Mark’s Square, you'll look towards the basilica’s gilded mosaics and domes, then the Doge’s Palace with its lace-like arches and pink-and-white stone. At a traditional glassblowing workshop, furnace heat fills the room as molten glass glows orange on the blowpipe, turned and shaped by master artisans. Later, you may choose today’s Optional Experience: a gondola and Grand Canal cruise, passing carved balconies, church fronts and ornate bridges while you listen to the oars dip into the canal water.

Along the Inn Valley, you'll travel into the Austrian Tyrol, with steep meadows, chalet roofs and mountain peaks high above the road. In Innsbruck, you look towards the Bergisel ski jump, then stand beneath the Golden Roof, its 2,657 fire-gilded copper tiles catching the light above the Old Town. At the Swarovski Crystal Worlds Store, crystal installations scatter color across walls and glass cases as you browse for gifts with a little Austrian sparkle. This evening, you may choose today’s Optional Experience: a traditional Tyrolean evening, where music, folk dress and the clap of dancing hands fill the room.

In Munich, you pause in Marienplatz for the Glockenspiel, watching carved figures turn high on the New Town Hall as the square waits below. Later, maybe visit Hofbräuhaus, where you can sit beneath painted ceilings at long wooden tables, with foaming steins and warm pretzels set before you. The road then turns towards the Rhineland, with broad fields, wooded hills and vineyards leading you towards the Rhine.

On the Rhine, you’ll board a river cruise and drift past terraced vineyards, slate-roofed villages and castle walls perched high above the water. Vineyards stripe the slopes, church spires taper above riverside rooftops and the boat moves steadily between banks that have watched travelers pass for centuries. Amsterdam waits with tall canal houses leaning towards the water, bicycle bells at the bridges and warm light spilling from windows onto the canals. You may choose today’s Optional Experience in a glass-topped boat through the historic canal ring, looking up at arched bridges, narrow façades and reflections trembling across the water.

At the end of your two-week Europe tour, you say goodbye to your Travel Director and traveling companions.