The Art of France & Italy

The Art of France & Italy
Explore Musée d’Orsay’s sweeping galleries, wander the immense Louvre, tour Accademia, the first established art school in Europe, visit Italy’s Ufizzi Gallery housing masterpieces by Da Vinci, and see the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican Museum.
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Day 1 Overnight flight to France (Paris)
Day 2 Bonjour Paris
Paris city walk
Île de la CitéNotre-Dame CathedralÎle St. LouisLatin Quarter
Dinner in Latin Quarter
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: 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 3 Paris landmarks
Paris guided sightseeing tour
Arc de TriompheChamps ÉlyséesEiffel TowerChamp de MarsÉcole MilitaireLes InvalidesConciergerieTuileries GardenPlace VendômeOpera House
Montmartre tour director-led sightseeing
Sacré CoeurPlace du TertreMoulin Rouge
Dinner in Montmartre
Details: Paris guided sightseeing tour
What's that huge white arch at the end of the Champs-Élysées? The Arc de Triomphe, commissioned by Napoleon in 1806 after his victory at Austerlitz. Your licensed local guide will elaborate on this, and other Parisian landmarks. See some of the most famous sites, including the ornate, 19th-century Opera, the Presidential residence, the ultra-chic shops of the Rue du Faubourg St-Honoré, and the gardens of the Tuileries. You'll pass the Place de la Concorde, where in the center you’ll find the Obelisk of Luxor, a gift from Egypt in 1836, and the Place Vendôme, a huge square surrounded by 17th-century buildings. Spot chic locals (and tons of tourists) strolling the Champs-Élysées. Look up at the iron girders of the Eiffel Tower, built for the 1889 World's Fair to commemorate the centenary of the French Revolution. See Les Invalides (a refuge for war wounded), the École Militaire (Napoleon's alma mater), and the Conciergerie (the prison where Marie Antoinette was kept during the French Revolution).
Details: Tuileries Garden
Tuileries was originally the name of an old tiles factory. Yet, in the sixteen century, the queen of France, Marie de Medicis, ordered to build a castle with a long French garden at this place. Parisians used to call this new building the Tuileries Palace. During three centuries the garden was exclusively reserved for the court and the King. During the nineteen century, the Tuileries palace became the residence of Napoleon I, Louis XVIII, Charles X, Louis-Phillipe and Napoleon III. In 1871, Parisians burnt down the castle of Tuileries, during the last French Revolution and the insurrection of Paris.However, the garden kept its 17th-century design and became a popular place, always crowded in summer time.
Details: Louvre guided 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. But check out the art on the walls. 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 4 Loire Valley
Details: Giverny guided excursion (April-November only)
Claude Monet discovered this tiny farming village when he looked out the window of a stopped train. Impressed by its beauty, in 1883 he and his family moved into the pink stucco house where he spent the next 40 years planting his extensive gardens and creating some of the world's most beautiful Impressionist paintings. Spend some time wandering through the riot of natural color in the Clos Normand and watching soft light shine on the delicate Japanese bridge and lush water lilies that inspired some of his most famous works. See Monet's studio, preserved just as he left it, with supplies and sketches scattered around. Neglected for years and badly damaged during WWII, the house and gardens took 10 years to restore, but are now back in their full glory. Which just leaves one question: With all that weeding and fertilizing, how did Monet have time to paint?
Details: Seine River cruise
See the city from the water on an hour-long cruise along the River Seine. The Seine cuts right through Paris, dividing the city in half. See the Eiffel tower rising up on the Left Bank, the walls of the Louvre on the Right Bank. A guide will point out other monuments and architectural marvels as you pass, many of which are illuminated by clear white light at night.
Details: Crêperie dinner
Tonight for dinner, enjoy a speciality from the Brittany region of France: crepes. Creperie restaurants are very popular in Paris and you will be able to choose from the variety of toppings (ham, cheese, egg, peppers, spinach, cream--or a combination!) to create your favorite savory crepe (called "galette") before you enjoy a local favourite: a sweet crepe served with chocolate, fruit or jam.
Day 5 Paris--Florence
Details: Musée d’Orsay visit
Visit the Musée D'Orsay, which is housed in a former railway station. It features mainly French art from 1848-1915, and is best known for its impressionist masterpieces by Monet, Degas, Renoir, and Cezanne.
Details: Fly to Florence
Due to limited flight capacity to Florence airport, some flights will land in the nearby airports of Bologna or Pisa. Your itinerary will not be impacted.
Day 6 Florence landmarks
Florence guided walking sightseeing tour with Whisper headsets
Palazzo VecchioPiazza della SignoriaChiesa di Santa CrocePonte VecchioDuomoLeather WorkshopGates of ParadiseGiotto’s Bell TowerDante's House
Traditional Italian pizza dinner
Details: Florence guided walking sightseeing tour with Whisper headsets
Immerse yourself in the charms of old-world Firenze. The birthplace and focal point of the Italian Renaissance, Florence still has the masterpieces to prove it. Brunelleschi’s monumental cuploa (dome) atop the city's renowned Duomo dominates the skyline. Your local licensed guide will take you to Giotto's Bell Tower and the aptly named Gates of Paradise, the bronze east doors of the Baptistery that spurred the burgeoning Renaissance. Don’t overlook the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli at the Chiesa di Santa Croce, or Florence’s amazing leather goods. You can check them out when you visit one of the area’s famed workshops!
Details: Piazza della Signoria
Spend time in the Piazza della Signoria, the political stage of Renaissance Florence and an open-air museum of sculpture.
Details: Ponte Vecchio
Stroll along the Ponte Vecchio, the oldest of Florence's six bridges and one of the best-loved sites of Florence. Lined with numerous shops, visitors often do not realize they are on a bridge until the reach the center arches that look out over the Arno.
Details: Accademia visit
Founded in 1563, the Accademia was the first school in Europe established to teach drawing, painting, and sculpting. Michelangelo's David (the biblical hero who slayed Goliath) is the most famous work on display.
Day 7 Florence
Optional  Pisa guided excursion  $70
Baptistery visitLeaning Tower
Details: Uffizi Gallery guided visit
Today you will visit one of Italy's most famous museums. The Ufizzi Gallery was originally built in 1560 as an administrative centre for the Florentine State. It now houses the largest collection of Italian Renaissance paintings. You will view the famous 'Birth of Venus' by Botticelli and 'The Baptism of Christ' by Da Vinci and many other works of art.
Day 8 Florence--Rome
Travel to Rome
Details: Ancient Rome guided walking sightseeing tour with Whisper headsets
The ultimate symbol of Ancient Rome, the Colosseum still dominates the modern city. Tour the amphitheater with your local licensed guide. Built by the emperor Vespasian in A.D. 72, the structure held almost 50,000 spectators but was so well organized that the entire place could be emptied within 15 minutes. Inside, the spectacles varied from gladiator battles to immense naval contests to wild beast shows, in which thousands of exotic animals like giraffes and ostriches were popped into the stadium through trap doors and left to fight Roman hunters. See the system beneath the floor that operated the trap doors and housed the animals, then continue on to the relative calm of the Forum. Ancient Rome’s commercial, religious and political center, the Forum held markets, temples and the Senate House. Near the Rostra, or speaker’s platform, you can still see game boards scratched into the marble by bored politicians--anyone up for a game of tic tac toe?
Details: Forum Romanum visit
Tour the ruins and excavations of the Roman Forum, which features the remains of magnificent temples, basilicas, and triumphal arches that once formed the heart of the Empire.
Day 9 Rome
Vatican City guided walking sightseeing tour with Whisper headsets
Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel visitSt. Peter’s Basilica visit
Rome city walk
Spanish StepsTrevi FountainPantheonPiazza Navona
Authentic trattoria dinner
Details: Vatican City guided walking sightseeing tour with Whisper headsets
Visit St. Peter’s Basilica where from the outside, the church has four rows of columns that radiate out like welcoming arms; inside, the church seems enormous enough to embrace the entire world. The dome, partially designed by Michelangelo, rises 452 feet above the ground. Michelangelo’s mark is everywhere here, from the costumes worn by the Swiss Guards to his exquisite “Pietà” sculpture (the only sculpture he ever signed) to the amazing frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. Because he considered himself a sculptor and not a painter, Michelangelo hated working on these paintings, now considered masterpieces.
Details: Rome city walk
Take a walk past Rome's most beautiful and unusual Baroque fountains. At the foot of the Spanish Steps, elegant cafes surround the central fountain. The water pressure here was so low that the artist had to sink the fountain into the ground to get any water going through it, so he went ahead and designed the fountain to look like a sinking ship. There's no shortage of water pressure at the nearby Trevi Fountain, a Baroque extravagance designed by master sculptor Bernini.
Details: Trevi Fountain
View the Trevi Fountain, where it is traditional to toss a coin into the fountain to ensure a safe return to the Eternal City.
Details: Piazza Navona
We will spend some time in the Piazza Navona area. Built on the foundations of Domitian's Circus, this magnificent square was designed by Borromini in 17th century. It is full of life and is highlighted by one of Rome's most spectacular fountains, the Four Rivers designed by Bernini. The square is often filled with local artists. The surrounding neighborhood is also one of the best places in Rome to get a tasty tartufo or gelato ice cream
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Day 10 Flight home from Rome

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    Day 10 Start extension to Sorrento
    Travel to Sorrento
    Details: Cameo workshop
    Cameos, oval in shape and consisting of a portrait in profile carved in relief on a background of a different color, are often worn as jewelry. Stone cameos of great artistry were made in Greece dating back as far as the 3rd century BC, the oldest being the Hellenistic piece the Farnese Tazza. They were very popular in Ancient Rome, especially in the family circle of Augustus. Stop by a modern-day cameo workshop and watch artisans carve them up close.
    Details: Pompeii guided excursion
    Stop to see the city where time stood still, literally. Once an important Roman city with 20,000 residents, Pompeii was frozen in time nearly 2000 years ago, when Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried the city under 30 feet of mud and volcanic ash. Forgotten for centuries after the eruption, Pompeii was discovered in the 1600’s and is now completely excavated. On your tour you will learn how Romans of all classes lived their lives--not only from large public structures, but from details like political graffiti, bars, and street signs.
    Day 11 Sorrento--Rome
    Details: Capri & Blue Grotto excursion
    From the Bay of Naples the island of Capri is less than an hour away by boat. Weather permitting, you will take a boat to the Blue Grotto, where sunlight reflected from beneath the water bathes the cave in a silver-blue light.
    Details: Travel to Rome
    Known to many as the "Eternal City," Rome is the capital of Italy, with an uninterrupted history spanning 2,500 years. As one of the founding cities of Western civilization, Rome is filled with incredible historical sites. It is a city with many faces, encompassing medieval, renaissance, and modern styles. To define Rome is an impossible task, but to enjoy Rome is a wondrous experience.
    Day 12 Flight home from Rome
    Map of the The Art of France & Italy tour
    Tour Includes:
    • Round-trip airfare
    • 8 overnight stays (10 with extension) in hotels with private bathrooms
    • Full European breakfast daily
    • Lunch as per itinerary
    • 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
    • Guided sightseeing tours with high-tech headset 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.
    We are better able to assist you with a quote for your selected departure date and city over the phone. Please call 1.888.310.7120 to price this tour with your requested options.
    Please select a postal code
    4271.00 total fee
    Basic Options


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