EUROPEAN TAPESTRY WITH LONDON EXTENSION - 2010

17 days incl. travel, or 16 days from London to London (HAL)

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Vacation Overview

This is the perfect way to discover “traditional” Europe! Enjoy include guided sightseeing of the major landmarks, like St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Changing of the Guard (if held) in London, the Lion Monument and Chapel Bridge in Lucerne, the opulent Golden Roof in Innsbruck, Doges’ Palace and the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, Rome’s Sistine Chapel and Colosseum, Michelangelo’s David and Signoria Square in Florence, and Notre Dame and the Louvre in Paris. Ride a high-speed Eurostar train between London and Brussels and a high-speed TGV train from Nice to Paris. Other highlights are a canal cruise in Amsterdam, a cruise down the romantic Rhine, a private boat transfer and glassblowing demonstration in Venice, scenic drives through the Black Forest, the Swiss and Tyrolean Alps, Brenner Pass, an overnight stay on the French Riviera, a picture stop at Pisa’s Leaning Tower, and a bird’s-eye view of Paris from the second floor of the Eiffel Tower. You’ll see it all! Return to London by Eurostar train and stay one night in London.

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Things to see on your vacation: View Vacation Photo Slideshow

A Vacation Story Eiffel Tower

Imagining Paris without the Eiffel Tower is like London without Big Ben or San Francisco without the Golden Gate Bridge. But no sooner had the architect Gustav Eiffel beaten his 700 competitors in the design competition for the 1889 Centennial Exposition, celebrating a century since the French Revolution, than a vocal outcry began to halt construction of the edifice. Three hundred famous French artists and writers signed a petition in the newspaper “Le Temps” denouncing Eiffel’s radically modern design as “useless and monstrous,” a blight upon the elegant fabric of the City of Light. Others critics were even more vicious, describing the proposed tower as a “tragic street lamp,” a gymnasium apparatus…incomplete, confused and deformed,” “a giant ungainly skeleton,” “a half-built factory pipe,” “a carcass” and even “a hole-riddled suppository.” Nature-lovers argued that it would disturb the flight patterns of Parisian birds. Even as the iron lattice began to rise, Parisians continued to refer to it by the less-than-flattering nickname, “the metal asparagus.” Of course, no sooner had the tower opened in 1889 than the rabid criticism evaporated.