A family tour of a Paris neighborhood with a local guide
We’re in Gerard Merlot, a shop famous for macarons in the St Germain district of Paris, with guide Genevieve, who we’ve met through a terrific company called Tours by Locals.
We’re in Gerard Merlot, a shop famous for macarons in the St Germain district of Paris, with guide Genevieve, who we’ve met through a terrific company called Tours by Locals.
I’m literally walking in Vincent Van Gogh’s footsteps to the field where he painted the famous paintings like the Wheatfield of Crows and where he shot himself.
In this medieval city, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. Today we see a cathedral that was begun in 1145—amazing it is still standing after being damaged in WWII. Nearly 9,000 half timbered houses burned during WWII.
We are at the famous Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial overlooking Omaha Beach, where the massive allied assault on the Normandy on June 6, 1944 aimed to liberate France and defeat Nazi Germany.
I’m on a different kind of cruise—a River Cruise on the Seine in France on Avalon Waterways Creativity—just 140 passengers on this 361-foot long barge and with just 70 staterooms and two suites.
At the time, no one expected the speech to be a big deal. Lincoln had merely been asked to make a few remarks at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, here in the Pennsylvania countryside, just four months after the searing battle that turned the tide of the Civil War.
We’re sitting in a family dining room in a tiny French village eating chicken cooked in champagne and sipping champagne. This is the Champagne Region of France afterall.
We’ve moved from the heart of fashionable Paris to the St. Germaine neighborhood on the Left Bank and feel like we’ve time traveled, checking in to the tiny Hotel Verneuil, a 26-room hotel that is housed in a 17th century building.
Eighty per cent of her clients are American families. She notes that most guides, while true experts in their field, aren’t often as willing to play to the kids’ interests so when booking a guide, it is key to make sure they appreciate that kids’ may not have as long attention span.
You can gather the gang in a beautifully decorated home without doing all the work that typically entails, and without cooking at all — unless you want to. All you’ve got to do for a stress-free holiday is to celebrate at a vacation villa or condo rather than at your overcrowded house.