Amsterdam, Brussels & Paris

138 Days until departure
October 4, 2024 - October 13, 2024
TourCenter ID: Snow-7453

Brussels -Explorica

Tour Itinerary print itinerary

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Day 1 Overnight flight to the Netherlands
Day 2 Hallo Amsterdam
Details: Meet your tour director and check into hotel
Your 24-hour Tour Director will meet you at the airport and remain with your group until your final airport departure. You’ll also have a private coach and driver while touring .
Details: Rijksmuseum visit
Amsterdam’s most popular art museum opened in 1885 to house William V’s personal art collection. It now holds an unbelievable collection of Rembrandts, Vermeers, and other Dutch masters, plus an extensive collection of Asian and decorative arts. Upstairs there’s a collection of 17th- and 18th-century dollhouses, furnished just as real houses of the time would have been.
Details: Traditional Dutch pannenkoeken dinner
Enjoy a traditional Dutch dinner of pannenkoeken, a large thin pancake similar to a crepe, that can be topped with anything from bacon to apples or raisins and finished with a drizzle of stroop, which is a dark thick syrup.
Day 3 Amsterdam Landmarks
Details: Amsterdam tour director-led sightseeing
Canals and crocuses. Bicycles and bluebells. With more canals than Venice (and more flower merchants than perhaps any other city in the world), downtown Amsterdam is an explosion of color and light reflecting off the water. Take a glass-topped canal boat ride—the best way to see the gabled houses and nearly 1200 bridges. Visit a diamond factory to see how the stones are cut, and see the historic home where Anne Frank and her family hid for more than two years during WWII.
Details: Canal guided cruise
Take a glass-topped canal boat ride down the flower-lined canals of Amsterdam for an amazing view of the gabled houses and nearly 1,200 bridges.
Details: Diamond factory visit
Go on a Diamond cutting and polishing tour in one of Amsterdam’s renowned diamond factories. The diamond cutting industry was introduced to Amsterdam in the 16th century by the Sephardic Jews.
Details: Anne Frank House visit
Take a tour of Anne Frank's house, where three different Jewish families hid for more than two years during World War II and where Anne’s famous diaries were discovered. See where she and her family lived before being betrayed to the Nazis and deported to concentration camps.
Details: Rijsttafel dinner
Rijsttafel literally translates to "rice table", and is an elaborate Indonesian meal made up of many small plates accompanied with rice. During the Dutch colonization of the East Indies, this meal became a popular dish in the Netherlands.
Day 4 Amsterdam--Brussels (via Bruges)
Travel to Brussels via Bruges
Bruges tour director-led sightseeing tour
Burg SquareMarket SquareBeguinage Church and Convent visitChurch of Our Lady
Details: Bruges canal cruise
Enjoy a sightseeing tour of Bruges from its scenic and picturesque canals.
Day 5 Brussels Landmarks
Brussels tour director-led sightseeing
Grand PlaceManneken PisCathédrale des Sts-Michel-et-Gudule
Details: Brussels tour director-led sightseeing
Chocolate and comics (home of Tin Tin creator Herge). Surrealism. French fries. The headquarters of the European Union. Art Nouveau. Brussels combines Hapsburg-era elegance with modern business and big-city bustle. See the city's historical heart on a walking tour led by your Tour Director. Start at the cobblestone Grand-Place, a central square lined with ornamental gables, medieval banners, and gilded façades. Look at the 15th-century Town Hall and the King's House, lining the Place. Then walk to the Manneken-Pis. Tired from so much strolling? Buy a bag of Belgian pralines for fortification.
Details: Waffle making class
Enjoy a fun and easy 90 minute waffle workshop. Learn about the waffle's history and its recipe and guided by expert chefs learn to make and enjoy your own. No previous cooking experience is necessary, simply mix, bake and enjoy Belgium's favorite snack.
Day 6 Brussels--Paris
Travel to Paris
Paris city walk
Île de la CitéNotre-Dame CathedralÎle St. LouisLatin Quarter
Dinner in Latin Quarter
Details: Fragonard's Perfume Museum visit
Since 1926 Fragonard has been creating perfumes by combining traditional craft methods with the most modern production techniques. In the heart of Paris, just a few steps from the Opéra, you can explore one of two fascinating museums: a 19th-century town house and a theater dating from the turn of the 20th century. A miniature factory composed of 19th-century copper distilling apparatus demonstrates methods for extracting raw materials. In both museums' boutiques, you can find some original and exclusive gift ideas (Perfumes, eaux de toilette, creams, soaps and natural products). www.fragonard.com
Details: Paris city walk
This city was made for walking. Stroll grand boulevards with sweeping views of the city, pristine parks with trees planted in perfect rows, and narrow streets crowded with vendors selling flowers, pastries and cheese. Then head to the Île de la Cité, a small island in the Seine, to see Notre Dame Cathedral. Please note Notre Dame Cathedral is currently closed due to fire damage.
Details: Notre-Dame Cathedral
View the Notre-Dame Cathedral. Work began in 1163 on a spot that had been a holy shrine since Roman times. Over the centuries, the cathedral has been the scene of some of France's most momentous occasions, including the coronation of Napoleon.
Day 7 Paris Landmarks
Optional  Versailles guided excursion (pre-book only)  $80
State ApartmentsHall of MirrorsGardens of Versailles
Le Marais guided walking tour
Hotel de VillePlace des Vosges visitPlace de la BastilleOld Jewish QuarterPompidou Center
Details: Le Marais guided walking tour
This 2-hour walking tour of the Marais quarter accompanied by a licensed local Paris guide will transport you into the history of Paris as you discover 17th century town mansions around the celebrated and safeguarded Place des Vosges, anecdotes about the French Revolution around the Bastille, the old Jewish quarter on rue des Rosiers, cobbled streets and courtyards with stories of murderers and prisoners, trendy vintage clothes shops, and finally the resolutely modern and controversial Pompidou Center, just a stone's throw from the Forum des Halles shopping mall.
Details: Place de la Bastille
Experience the Place de la Bastille, where on July 14, 1789, an angry Parisian mob stormed the notorious prison and freed the prisoners.
Day 8 Paris
Montmartre tour director-led sightseeing
Sacré CoeurPlace du TertreMoulin Rouge
Dinner in Montmartre
Details: Louvre visit
The world's largest art museum, the Louvre is housed in a Medieval fortress-turned-castle so grand it's worth a tour itself. You walk through the 71-foot glass pyramid designed by I.M. Pei and added in 1989, and step into another world--one with carved ceilings, deep-set windows, and so many architectural details you could spend a week just admiring the rooms. The Mona Lisa is here, as well as the Venus de Milo and Winged Victory (the headless statue, circa 200 BC, discovered at Samothrace). The Louvre has seven different departments of paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures and antiquities. Don't miss the Egyptian collection, complete with creepy sarcophagi, or the collection of Greek ceramics, one of the largest in the world. (Please note the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays.)
Details: Montmartre tour director-led sightseeing
If you’re coming to Paris, you absolutely need to take a walk in Montmartre! This area will wake the artist in you up. Its narrow alleys, windmills, little details, and soul are some of the things that make Montmartre so unique. As you walk in Montmartre, you will quickly understand how it has inspired so many artists such as Picasso and Van Gogh. As you walk up the hill make sure to take in all that surrounds you, because in Montmartre you are likely to find surprises around every corner!
Day 9 Flight home from Paris
  • Day 10 Group stay behind
  • Tour Includes

    • Round-trip airfare
    • 7 overnight stays (9 with extension) in hotels with private bathrooms
    • Full European breakfast daily
    • Dinner daily
    • Full-time services of a professional tour director
    • Guided sightseeing tours and city walks as per itinerary
    • Visits to select attractions as per itinerary
    • Tour Diary™
    • Local Guide and Local Bus Driver tips; see note regarding other important tips
    • Note: On arrival day only dinner is provided; on departure day, only breakfast is provided
    • Note: Tour cost does not include airline-imposed baggage fees, or fees for any required passport or visa. Optional excursions, optional pre-paid Tour Director and multi-day bus driver tipping, among other individual and group customizations will be listed as separate line items in the total trip cost, if included.

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