13 Day In the Footsteps of WWII & France, Belgium, Austria, Germany Driving Tour

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Home > 13 Day In the Footsteps of WWII & France, Belgium, Austria, Germany Driving Tour

Overview

The following itinerary is for general planning and budgetary discussion purposes only. You will have plenty of time to make changes to the route and costs. Your final custom itinerary will include detailed accommodation information, voucher information (meeting time & place), personalized recommendations, local and emergency contact information, area highlights, tips and specialized traveler information specific to you and your trip. Request a price quote on this tour by clicking the button below. This tour can also be done by train or private tour with your own van and driver guide.

Day 1: Depart

The experts at Travel4Real will help you find the best route and price at no extra cost to you with our free airfare quoting service. If you are departing from North America you will arrive to France on Day 2. If departing from the EU, you will arrive the same day.

Day 2: Arrival to Paris

Private airport transfer from airport to Paris hotel

Once you have collected your luggage, a staff member will be waiting for you at the Arrivals Hall with a sign with your name on it.

Paris Accommodations Double Standard Room with private bath and daily breakfast. Paris, France’s capital, is a major European city and a global center for art, fashion, gastronomy and culture. Its picturesque 19th-century cityscape is crisscrossed by wide boulevards and the River Seine. Beyond such landmarks as the Eiffel Tower and the 12th-century, Gothic Notre-Dame cathedral, the city is known for its cafe culture, and designer boutiques along the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. We have several lovely hotels in the historical area of the city. The city of Paris is divided into twenty arrondissements. The first one is in the center, the following ones spiral outwards in a clock-wise direction. Most of the famous tourist attractions can be found in one of the central eight arrondissements, this is where we choose our hotels for you.

Dinner reservations in Paris.

Meal paid locally

Day 3: Paris – 2 hr Walking tour with Private guide in Paris

Although it’s tempting to take the Métro around Paris, the best way to explore the city is on foot with a local guide. Walking along the Seine, strolling around the Jardin du Luxembourg, or indulging in some idle flânerie (aimless wandering through an urban environment) along the Grands Boulevards will not only open your eyes to Paris’s charm and beauty, but will enable you to discover the city’s rich history. Paris is full of surprises and hidden treasures. In this section we suggest three walking tours around different Parisian neighborhoods: Montmartre, the Marais, and the Latin Quarter. We can arrange a group or private walking tour of Paris.

Tonight enjoy an early evening dinner cruise in Paris

Spend an enjoyable evening on the Seine in Paris.

You will go directly to the boarding area of La Marina, located at the foot of the Musée d’Orsay, a few steps from the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde. You will be welcomed by our team, who will take you to your reserved private table and be fully available during the cruise. You will enjoy the warm setting of the boat-restaurant during your dinner on the Seine.

Choice of main course :

Haddock loin with shellfish juice, roast artichokes and carrots

Braised chicken leg, Mediterranean flavored vegetables, celery chips with parmesan Piece of beef, new potatoes, caramelized peppers and onions, green pepper sauce (+7€) *Medley of seasonal vegetables, crunchy celery with tarragon vinegar

**

Cheese platter (+6€)

**

Choice of desserts

Assortment:

Cream pastry with apricot medallion

Intense chocolate ingot

Mixed fresh seasonal fruit

or

*Chocolate dome, ring of strawberries and raspberries, fruit coulis

**

Drinks:

One glass of wine (16 cl) at choice

or

A glass of soft (water or cola cola ou fruit juice)

Children’s Menu :

Shredded turkey, cherry tomatoes and mozzarella Drink: orange juice, Coca Cola or water **

Choice of main course from the menu **

Sparkling chocolate ingot

**

Orange juice, Coca-Cola or water

Day 4: Group tour to Versailles (King of France Home), Giverny (Monet’s Home and Gardens) or a French cooking class

Option 1

VERSAILLES

Spotlight on the most famous jewels of France : Versailles Castle, well known as the Sun King’s Estate. The palace of Versailles is one of the most visited French monuments because of its architecture, its gardens and also because of its history. It welcomes several millions of visitors each year.

You will visit the Palace of Versailles with our passionate driver-guide and expert in French history. You can discover the gardens of Versailles during a short free time. You can privatize the tour for even more interactivity with our driver-guide, pick up from your place of residence in Paris guaranteed.

One of the world’s most illustrious monuments, the Palace of Versailles was the official residence of the Kings of France Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI and their courts from 1682 until the French Revolution. Your guide will help you to experience everything about what life was like in the Palace of Versailles, the symbol of the power of the French monarchy. Then enjoy some free time strolling through the palace’s stunning grounds and formal gardens .

Inside the Palace of Versailles

The Palace of Versailles covers an area of over 721,000 square feet and has more than 700 rooms. Follow your guide straight to the front of the line to visit the most beautiful rooms inside the palace: the King’s Grand Apartments, with seven rooms dedicated to different gods, and the Queen’s Grand Apartments, mirroring those of the king, which include the Coronation Room and the Queen’s Bedroom, once occupied by Marie Antoinette, among others. Also, marvel at the sparkling Hall of Mirrors of Versailles, a large reception room in which to see and be seen, dreamt up by the celebrated architect, Jules Hardouin-Mansart. Designed to dazzle the Sun King’s visitors, this huge hall with marble and gilded bronze decoration was somewhere to stroll and meet. It was also the setting for sumptuous receptions and royal wedding balls.

Your tour will be followed by an opportunity to discover the palace’s gardens, the second part of your visit. In 1661, Louis XIV commissioned the landscape architect André Le Nôtre to lay out the grounds and gardens, something that was just as important as the construction of the palace itself as far as the king was concerned. Enjoy your free time and explore the Gardens of Versailles, admiring the magnificent sculpted decoration (marble statues, busts, and vases), fountains, and pools

Option 2

GIVERNY

Half-day excursion from Paris to visit the house and the gardens of Claude Monet, the well-known Impressionist painter, with a professional guide. Immerse yourself in the world of the painter, famous for his landscape canvases and numerous views of his garden, such as the “Water Lilies,” the “Japanese Bridge” and “The Irises.” Your visit will also include the beautiful water lily pond, with its play of colors and Monet’s legendary Japanese-inspired bridge. Learn about the artist’s daily life by visiting his home and his studio.

Set off from your meeting point in Central Paris for a unique excursion in the footsteps of the Impressionist painter Claude Monet. Admire the lush green landscapes of the French countryside as you travel by luxury air-conditioned coach to the small Normandy village of Giverny. The trip will take approximately one and a half hours. The painter and gardener Claude Monet lived there for 43 years, with his family of eight children, from 1883 until his death in 1926.

Passionate about gardening and color variations, he designed his flower garden, fruit tree orchard and water garden as if they were works of art. As you visit the gardens at Giverny, you will see the central pathway leading up to the house, bordered by different varieties of nasturtiums and roses, as well as the multicolored flower beds full of tulips, narcissi, daffodils, irises and peonies. Stroll through the Clos Normand Flower Garden, which is home to many plants of Eastern origins, until you reach the lavish water garden, so famous for its water lilies, weeping willows and green-painted Japanese Bridge (bridges like this are traditionally red in Japan). Be captivated by Giverny’s unique atmosphere, its light and the reflection of clouds on the water.

Take the opportunity to explore Monet’s pink-plastered house, where he lived and worked for many years (guided tours are not permitted due to the lack of space). Discover the blue reading room, which leads into the larder and Claude Monet’s studio, where the doyen of the french impressionists worked until 1889. These rooms, as well as those of his private apartments, have been reconstructed with the original furniture that was already in the house in Monet’s day. Visit the sunny yellow dining room, which has been reconstructed down to the very last detail. It was very modern for its time, with earthenware dishes and a kitchen tiled with local blue and white Rouen tiles. In the Dining Room, admire one of the most important collections of Japanese prints in the world.

At the end of your visit, take advantage of the village and the pretty gift and book shop; it is housed in what was once the studio where Monet painted the huge Water Lilies canvases. It stretches for more than 3,200 square feet! The shop offers a wide range of products linked to the Impressionist’s work: postcards, posters, teas, books, official Claude Monet tableware, flower seeds and plants.

Option 3

French COOKING CLASS

We have several cooking opportunities in Paris from pastry classes to desert classes to full menu prep, ask when booking for the cooking class options.

Day 5: Paris to Normandy – 3 hr 30 min drive time

Pick up rental car

Caen Accommodations with private bath and daily breakfast.

We only use accommodations we personally know and use in Caen. We fully inspect what we offer and never just book online. We have personal relationships with many of the property owners and make sure each of our properties great amenities, private bath and excellent service.

Day 6: Normandy – Full day WWII Experience by rental car

Full D-Day experience in Normandy. Caen Memorial Museum, a 360 movie Located on the Arromanches clifftops; then you will go down on the sand and explore; have lunch (meal paid locally) then to a 5-story German bunker filled with artifacts and damage where the British liberated it with explosives. Outside are landing craft used in the invasion and also used in the movie Saving Private Ryan. We will give you complete driving instructions so you don’t get lost.

Day 7: Full day Drive to Bastogne, Belgium

Check in to Bastogne accommodations with private bath and daily breakfast.

Day 8: Bastogne – WWII Sightseeing around Bastogne with local guide.

Today you will visit some of the most important sites during the Battle of the Bulge. You will have your own historian join us for the day. The siege of Bastogne was an engagement in December 1944 between American and German forces at the Belgian town of Bastogne, as part of the larger Battle of the Bulge. … The siege was from 20 to 27 December, until the besieged American forces were relieved by elements of General George Patton’s Third Army

Day 9: Depart Bastogne for Munich 6 hr drive time

Check in at Munich Accommodations

Standard Double Rooms with private bath.

Day 10: Munich- 2 hr 30 min Hitler and the Third Reich Munich Walking Tour

Munich was the birthplace of the Nazi Party and the home of its headquarters. The voice of Adolf Hitler resounded around the public squares and streets of Munich before being heard anywhere else in Germany. As the stage upon which some of the Nazis’ most notorious crimes, from Hitler’s failed Putsch to the horrific Kristallnacht, the largest anti-Semitic program seen in Europe for centuries and a dismal milestone on the road to the Holocaust were launched, Munich was the nursery of a movement that would shake humanity with some of the most infamous and terrible events in history.

In a unique and fascinating tour, our dedicated guide will open up this hidden history for you. We’ll show you the beer-halls which hosted the first small gatherings of the fanatics who one day would lead the Third Reich, and the place where Hitler made his first major speeches. We’ll walk you through the streets where Hitler and his brownshirts fought their way to power.

The irony is that while much of central Munich was devastated by Allied bombing, many Nazi buildings survived and still stand today. Standing alongside them are memorials to the city’s many victims of Nazism, including those who sacrificed their lives in opposing its hateful ideology. We’ll show you all these sites and give you the story.

Visit to Dachau concentration camp and memorial by rental car. Dachau was a Nazi concentration camp opened on 22 March 1933, which was initially intended to hold political prisoners. It is located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory northeast of the medieval town of Dachau, about 16 km northwest of Munich in the state of Bavaria, in southern Germany.

Day 11: Drive from Munich to Berlin 6 hrs.

Check in at Berlin Accommodations. Double Room with daily breakfast.

Day 12: Berlin WW2 history tour with local guide.

This Berlin World War II Tour concentrates on the effects, history, buildings, and stories surrounding Berlin in the Second World War. Berlin Served as the Nazi stronghold in Germany and command center for Hitler and the Third Reich. Berlin may have played the biggest part of any city during the atrocities that took place in World War II. Join us as we look at the scars and battlefields from left behind during the Battle of Berlin. Let our guides tell you stories and legends as we see the spot where Hitler had his notorious underground lair. See the damage brought on by thousands of allied bombs and the defense structures built to keep them out.

This Tour visits many World War II historical sights and memorials. Along the way, your guide will recount historic events and urban legends.

Free afternoon and evening

Day 13: Private Airport Transfer From Hotel to Airport End of Tour

You will be picked up at the hotel reception.

Tour Dates & Prices

This tour is customizable to your dates and budget level. Request a quote today on this tour.

What's Included

Included

  • Private airport transfer from airport to Paris hotel 
  • Paris Accommodations in the historic center of the city 
  • Dinner reservations in Paris. 
  • Walking tour with Private guide in Paris, France: Explore the city with a local guide
  • Early evening dinner cruise in Paris – Paris, France: Enjoy a lunch or dinner cruise on the Seine river
  • Morning Tour to Versailles, Giverny or Cooking Class – Paris, France
  • Rental car with insurance and unlimited mileage. 
  • Caen Accommodations – Caen, France: Accommodation in historical city center 
  • Full day WWII Experience by rental car with our instructions  – Mémorial de Caen, Arromanches 360, Le Grand Bunker,
  • Cimetière américain de Colleville- sur-Mer
  • Bastogne – accommodations with private bath and daily breakfast 
  • WWII Sightseeing around Bastogne with local guide 
  • Munich Accommodations with private bath and daily breakfast. 
  • Hitler and the Third Reich Munich Walking Tour
  • Visit to Dachau concentration camp and memorial – Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site
  • Berlin Accommodations with private bath and daily breakfast
  • Berlin WW2 history tour with local guide in Berlin 
  • Private Airport Transfer from Hotel to Airport 
  • End of Tour

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