ENCHANTING EUROPE - 2010

14 days incl. travel, or 13 days from London to Amsterdam (HM)

Return to England Vacations

Vacation Overview

If you’re looking for an in-depth Western Europe travel experience, this vacation is ideal with 2-night stays in London, Paris, Lucerne, Munich, Germany’s Rhineland, and Amsterdam. Begin with guided sightseeing in London and visits to St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Changing of the Guard (if held). Next, a fast Eurostar train whisks you to Paris for a welcome dinner with wine at a fine restaurant. Get a bird’s-eye view of the city from the second floor of the Eiffel Tower and take in the major landmarks on a guided sightseeing tour. On to Lucerne for a guided walking tour that features the Lion Monument and Chapel Bridge, then stop in the Principality of Liechtenstein and in Innsbruck to see the opulent Golden Roof. In charming Munich, sightseeing with a Local Guide shows off the Olympic Stadium, Nymphenburg Palace, Marienplatz, and the gothic Frauenkirche. Pause along the Romantic Road in Rothenburg before enjoying a Rhine River cruise and Riesling wine tasting. Continue to Cologne’s twin-spired gothic cathedral and to Amsterdam for guided sightseeing, a scenic canal cruise, and a visit to a major diamond center.

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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.