European Escorted Tours We offer multiple escorted tour companies with all kinds of European itineraries. These are basically bus tours that move from place to place to see the major sights. They can include a tour boat to see a hightlight river or a train ride to connect two cities but usually you end up on a motorcoach with a driver and a tour guide to go see the sights. The advantage of an escorted tour is that you usually get closer up to the sights (at point of drop off) and you usually have an appointment to see a local guide or enter an attraction. The prices are pretty attractive as they run the same tour 52 times per year so they get a good price from suppliers. You can cover a lot of ground as you are back on the bus and off to the next sight but most of these also offer free time. The tour guide has pre-arranged with local cultural favorites like restaurants, farms, music/dance or artisans to have highlights along the way. Luggage is handled and you usually get breakfast daily along with 3- 5 other meals per week which also includes some type of welcome dinner or highlight dinner. The only disadvantage we see in escorted tours is the moving from place to place with 40 or 50 other tour participants. The pace is usually fast and you have to be up, out at a certain time with bags out an hour or so before. Globus Tours Cosmos Tours Trafalgar Tours Brendan Tours Tauck Tours Collette Tours Insight Vacations European River Cruises We handle all of the major river cruise companies in Europe. Whether you are looking for the Rhine, Danube, Southern France, The Seine, Tulip time or a sail through the wine country of Bordeaux or the Douro River Valley in Portugal, we can help. River cruises appeal to various age groups but usually there is more walking on a river cruise than there would be on a corresponding escorted tour. The reason for this is you keep tying up at various towns and the format for the trip is to assign you to a guide who will take you into see the town. Some places (like Heidelberg on the Rhine), you will be assigned to tour guides on a motorcoach but much of the sightseeing is walking tours. Many river cruise companies do assign guests upon request to a slow walking tour and other river cruise companies offer athletic (hiking, biking, etc.) tours for younger people so this river cruise product is diversifying as it grows. River cruises are a competitive value as they offer your transportation, food, beer or wine with meals and sightseeing all at one prepaid price. As the boats and vendor companies have expanded, there are more deals in river cruising than there was at the beginning of this business. The only drawback we see to river cruising is the abundance of boats on the popular rivers. The river cruise boats end up docked 2 or 3 abreast and the tiny river towns are busier than ever. If you cannot walk long distances (1 mile or so) you will not see as much as those that can do the whole walking tour. Check out our River Cruise page for more info. Ocean Cruises (Eastern or Western Mediterranean, Northern Europe or British Isles) Most of the major cruise lines head to Europe for the summertime. This would include the largest boats in the world all the way down to specialty lines like Azamara, Crystal and Silversea that sail smaller upscale ships. Most seven day sailings are broken down into Eastern (Venice, Croatia and Greek Isles) or Western (Italy, France and Spain) Mediterranean. Some longer cruises combine Eastern and Western Med. or reposition between Northern Europe and the Mediterranean to extend the European season. Ships that berth in England for the summer mostly sail between the British Isles (England, Scotland and Ireland) with some France or Germany added in. Other boats depart London or Copenhagen and sail up to St. Petersburg with stops in Estonia, Norway, Sweden and other Nordic countries. The advantage of Ocean cruises is you can cover a great deal of geography in a week or 10 days plus you will get all your meals onboard that will cater to Americans. The disadvantage as we explained before is that sights may be further away from a cruise ship port and your time will be tight as most port calls are 8A to 5P or less. Some of the “small ships” will do overnight port of calls and even provide transport to the city center in some ports to compensate for this disadvantage although at a higher per diem cost. Holland America Lines Royal Caribbean Intl. Celebrity Cruises Azamara Club Cruises Crystal Cruises Norwegian Cruise Lines Oceania Cruises Regent Seven Seas Cruises Silversea MSC Cruises Princess Cruises European Independent Travel Travel agents are indespensible if you are planning an independent trip to Europe. We handle hotel reservations and we can dynamically package a vacation with skip the line tickets, escorted tours of various sites and daytrips from most of the iconic cities in Europe. We issue open jaw tickets so you arrive and depart from different airports, we sell train tickets with advance seat assignments, rail passes, inter-European flights and other forms of transportation. We arrange rental cars through Auto Europe who wholesales most car brands and guarantees the best rate plus a contract that you can understand. We book small hotels, larger tourist hotels and even specialty properties like b&bs and apartments across Europe. Our itineraries (while paid time), are informative to help you keep all your arrangements straight. As former tour operators, we make a custom plan for your traveling party with hotel, sightseeing vouchers and Googlemaps of your destinations. In these envelopes, you will get a flight itinerary and preprinted train tickets along with airport transfers and sightseeing trips. We do also sell independent travel where you get a little more help in the form of “hosted” vacations with companies like Monograms. These include a welcome, one highlight tour and nicer hotel accommodations with breakfast. Check out our Independent Travel page for more information on these services. All pictures copyright John Rice

BOOK EUROPE WITH OUR TRAVEL AGENCY

We are EUROPE Specialists!

We love Europe but with the long flights, we only go about every third year. We have explored our heritage in Italy, Germany and Ireland. We have visited Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and Ireland. Europe is older than North America with more history and a great local food culture. The continent has a great public transportation network and you can go seamlessly from country to country within the EU. We usually suggest that you segment European journeys regionally. Even though, we usually suggest at least 2 weeks for a European vacation, if you have time. Europe is a pretty big land mass even with trains and regional aircraft. Spain and Portugal combine nicely. Paris and London or London with Scotland or Ireland team nicely. Italy pairs can pair with Greece, Switzerland or Southern France and Germany pairs with Amsterdam or Belgium easily.

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BOOK EUROPE WITH OUR TRAVEL AGENCY

We are EUROPE Specialists!

We love Europe but with the long flights, we only go about every third year. We have explored our heritage in Italy, Germany and Ireland. We have visited Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and Ireland. Europe is older than North America with more history and a great local food culture. The continent has a great public transportation network and you can go seamlessly from country to country within the EU. We usually suggest that you segment European journeys regionally. Even though, we usually suggest at least 2 weeks for a European vacation, if you have time. Europe is a pretty big land mass even with trains and regional aircraft. Spain and Portugal combine nicely. Paris and London or London with Scotland or Ireland team nicely. Italy pairs can pair with Greece, Switzerland or Southern France and Germany pairs with Amsterdam or Belgium easily.

Our map on this page also lists major River Cruise destinations in Europe. These are great to connect two European cities as you can do a pre and a post with many river cruise trips. River cruises allow you to cruise from town to town without unpacking and see a lot of the small river towns along the way. Looking at our map, you will see that we have multiple choices of river cruise itineraries that include Eastern Europe, France, The Rhine River and also smaller rivers around Europe.

How do you want to do Europe? We offer many different styles of European vacations. The most popular are Escorted Tours, River Cruises, Ocean Cruises and Independent Travel (including hosted vacations, fly/drive and public transport travel). Each type of trip offers advantages and disadantages plus some trips are better suited for different types of personality. Consider the following factors when deciding what type of vacation you are seeking. Since Europe is a historical society, they built cities with cobblestones, pavers and steps in many places. Unlike the United States, Europe has a pretty functional public transportation system which can consist of trains, city and long distance busses, trams, faniculars, rental cars in some areas and even ferries. English is not the primary language but many tourism workers speak some English especially at hotels and tourist restaurants. Some European countries are big so places like Italy, Spain, France or Germany can be an entire vacation. Visiting multiple countries requires a fast pace panorama trip and/or multiple weeks. As we alluded to above, our biggest tip for Europe is to break it into manageable size pieces. When planning a European itinerary, we are always mindful of the sights in a given place, the transportation logistics of moving from place to place (you usually lose most of a transfer day) and the time alloted by our clients. Using this formula, we can suggest the maximum number of destinations that make sense within the time constraint. The reason for this is that you want to have time to “soak up” the destination. If you are always running from place to place, you won’t get time to sit in the town square for a glass of wine or an ice cream. You only get cultural osmosis through interactions with Europeans which takes free time in between sightseeing. As we always ask clients what they want to do, many people suggest unrealistic itineraries where they will spend most of their vacation time in an airport, on a train or in transit. As a rule of thumb, if you have a week, maximum 2 cities/countries. If you have 10 days, you can add a third and with 2 weeks can stretch out 3 destinations or add a 4th. As I stated above, the different types of vacations appeal to different age groups and different personalities. The average age for escorted tours has gone down to the mid fifties at this point. More people are traveling at a younger age, so some travelers are less experienced and escorted tours have gotten more “cultural” over time. River cruises have burst on the scene in the 90s and have expanded rapidly. They are similar to a bus tour except you don’t have to pack and unpack. Ocean cruises can cover a lot of geography, but you are only in port for a few hours and kind of chip at Europe from the edges (example Livorno is about 2 hours from Florence). They are cheap to buy, but the shore excursions can be expensive long days. Travel agencies are doing a lot of independent travel in all forms. We have always routed people on public transport like inter-city trains and arranged fly/drives of places like Tuscany or Ireland. Now, we even offer hybrid “hosted” packages that are usually independent with a host who welcomes you to town and arranges one city tour.

European Escorted Tours We offer multiple escorted tour companies with all kinds of European itineraries. These are basically bus tours that move from place to place to see the major sights. They can include a tour boat to see a hightlight river or a train ride to connect two cities but usually you end up on a motorcoach with a driver and a tour guide to go see the sights. The advantage of an escorted tour is that you usually get closer up to the sights (at point of drop off) and you usually have an appointment to see a local guide or enter an attraction. The prices are pretty attractive as they run the same tour 52 times per year so they get a good price from suppliers. You can cover a lot of ground as you are back on the bus and off to the next sight but most of these also offer free time. The tour guide has pre-arranged with local cultural favorites like restaurants, farms, music/dance or artisans to have highlights along the way. Luggage is handled and you usually get breakfast daily along with 3-5 other meals per week which also includes some type of welcome dinner or highlight dinner. The only disadvantage we see in escorted tours is the moving from place to place with 40 or 50 other tour participants. The pace is usually fast and you have to be up, out at a certain time with bags out an hour or so before. Globus Tours Cosmos Tours Trafalgar Tours Brendan Tours Tauck Tours Collette Tours Insight Vacations European River Cruises We handle all of the major river cruise companies in Europe. Whether you are looking for the Rhine, Danube, Southern France, The Seine, Tulip time or a sail through the wine country of Bordeaux or the Douro River Valley in Portugal, we can help. River cruises appeal to various age groups but usually there is more walking on a river cruise than there would be on a corresponding escorted tour. The reason for this is you keep tying up at various towns and the format for the trip is to assign you to a guide who will take you into see the town. Some places (like Heidelberg on the Rhine), you will be assigned to tour guides on a motorcoach but much of the sightseeing is walking tours. Many river cruise companies do assign guests upon request to a slow walking tour and other river cruise companies offer athletic (hiking, biking, etc.) tours for younger people so this river cruise product is diversifying as it grows. River cruises are a competitive value as they offer your transportation, food, beer or wine with meals and sightseeing all at one prepaid price. As the boats and vendor companies have expanded, there are more deals in river cruising than there was at the beginning of this business. The only drawback we see to river cruising is the abundance of boats on the popular rivers. The river cruise boats end up docked 2 or 3 abreast and the tiny river towns are busier than ever. If you cannot walk long distances (1 mile or so) you will not see as much as those that can do the whole walking tour. Check out our River Cruise page for more info. Ocean Cruises (Eastern or Western Mediterranean, Northern Europe or British Isles) Most of the major cruise lines head to Europe for the summertime. This would include the largest boats in the world all the way down to specialty lines like Azamara, Crystal and Silversea that sail smaller upscale ships. Most seven day sailings are broken down into Eastern (Venice, Croatia and Greek Isles) or Western (Italy, France and Spain) Mediterranean. Some longer cruises combine Eastern and Western Med. or reposition between Northern Europe and the Mediterranean to extend the European season. Ships that berth in England for the summer mostly sail between the British Isles (England, Scotland and Ireland) with some France or Germany added in. Other boats depart London or Copenhagen and sail up to St. Petersburg with stops in Estonia, Norway, Sweden and other Nordic countries. The advantage of Ocean cruises is you can cover a great deal of geography in a week or 10 days plus you will get all your meals onboard that will cater to Americans. The disadvantage as we explained before is that sights may be further away from a cruise ship port and your time will be tight as most port calls are 8A to 5P or less. Some of the “small ships” will do overnight port of calls and even provide transport to the city center in some ports to compensate for this disadvantage although at a higher per diem cost. Holland America Lines Royal Caribbean Intl. Celebrity Cruises Azamara Club Cruises Crystal Cruises Norwegian Cruise Lines Oceania Cruises Regent Seven Seas Cruises Silversea MSC Cruises Princess Cruises

All pictures copyright John Rice No reprint or reuse without permission

Biggest Tip with Europe… Match your itinerary with your time available.

European Independent Travel Travel agents are indespensible if you are planning an independent trip to Europe. We handle hotel reservations and we can dynamically package a vacation with skip the line tickets, escorted tours of various sites and daytrips from most of the iconic cities in Europe. We issue open jaw tickets so you arrive and depart from different airports, we sell train tickets with advance seat assignments, rail passes, inter-European flights and other forms of transportation. We arrange rental cars through Auto Europe who wholesales most car brands and guarantees the best rate plus a contract that you can understand. We book small hotels, larger tourist hotels and even specialty properties like b&bs and apartments across Europe. Our itineraries (while paid time), are informative to help you keep all your arrangements straight. As former tour operators, we make a custom plan for your traveling party with hotel, sightseeing vouchers and Googlemaps of your destinations. In these envelopes, you will get a flight itinerary and preprinted train tickets along with airport transfers and sightseeing trips. We do also sell independent travel where you get a little more help in the form of “hosted” vacations with companies like Monograms. These include a welcome, one highlight tour and nicer hotel accommodations with breakfast. Check out our Independent Travel page for more information on these services.

Florida Seller of Travel. Reg. #10098

© 2006 to 2021 Market Access Promotions, Inc.

BOOK WITH OUR TRAVEL AGENCY

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