FROM THE COLOSSEUM TO THE EIFFEL TOWER WITH LONDON EXTENSION - 2010

13 days incl. travel, or 12 days from Rome to London (HFFT)

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Vacation Overview

Discover Europe with your family on this fun-filled vacation! Begin in Rome with guided sightseeing that visits the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s, and the Colosseum, where you get a family picture with a gladiator (if available). On to Pisa’s Leaning Tower, then the spa resort of Montecatini for an overnight. In Florence, see Michelangelo’s David, the cathedral, the Baptistry’s “Gate of Paradise,” and sculpture-filled Signoria Square. Enjoy a pizza party lunch at a local pizzeria and learn how they are made! Enter Venice by private boat, create your own Venetian mask, take a vaporetto ride, and enjoy guided sightseeing that includes St. Mark’s Square, Doges’ Palace, and the Bridge of Sighs. Continue to charming Lake Maggiore, cross Simplon Pass, and ride a cogwheel mountain train to Zermatt at the base of the Matterhorn. Spend a night in Montreux on Lake Geneva, then travel to Lausanne and ride the high-speed TGV train to Paris. Guided sightseeing includes Notre Dame Cathedral and a bird’s-eye view of the city from the top floor of the Eiffel Tower. London extension continues by Eurostar train to London, and includes two nights and a city tour with a Local Guide that features London’s highlights and a “flight” on the London Eye. In the rare event that the TGV or the Eurostar train (HFFT) is unavailable, alternative services will be provided.

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From the Colosseum to the Eiffel Tower (HFF)

Things to see on your vacation: View Vacation Photo Slideshow

A Vacation Story Pisa

"It was the most perfect experiment in the history of science. Holding both a cannon ball and a small musket ball, the 30-something Pisa native Galileo Galilei scaled the steps of his city’s famous Leaning Tower, and held them dramatically over the edge. Eight stories below, the town’s most learned scholars and priests were gathered as observers. They watched as the two balls dropped to the ground at the same speed – disproving, with a single stroke, the ancient idea that objects fall at different rates depending on their weight and size. This archaic concept, which had been espoused by the ancient Greek author Aristotle, had been accepted without question for more than 2,000 years, Galileo’s great innovation was to put it to a practical test of observation. Unfortunately, this famous story is probably not true. Galileo never wrote about it himself – it was recounted in a late biography penned by his secretary, Vincenzo Viviani. Most historians now believe that it was Galileo’s imaginative disciples who invented the Leaning Tower tale in order to make the theory so clear that even a child could understand it. "