ESSENTIAL EUROPE - 2010

12 days incl. travel, or 11 days from Rome to London (HF)

Return to England Vacations

Vacation Overview

This is one of our most popular Europe vacations. See the best of Rome, Florence, Venice, Lucerne, Paris, and London, featuring all the “must-see” landmarks with a Local Guide, like Rome’s Colosseum and Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo’s David and Signoria Square in Florence, Doges’ Palace and the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, Lucerne’s Lion Monument and Chapel Bridge, Notre Dame Cathedral and the second floor of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and London’s Buckingham Palace and St. Paul’s Cathedral. Other memorable highlights include Tuscany, Chianti and Burgundy wine country, the Apennines, subtropical Lugano, the stunning Swiss Alps, and an exciting trans-channel journey from Paris to London on the famous Eurostar train.

Special Departure:
Dec 18th Departure - Christmas Eve in Lucerne

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Add a River Cruise to Your Vacation (WCA)

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.