Highlights of France

You begin in Paris, where past and present weave through Haussmann boulevards, cafe terraces, museum doors and the quays of the Seine. After check-in, there is time to head into the city, where cafe conversations spill out onto the pavement and quieter corners wait just beyond the main avenues. You might catch the scent of a croque monsieur warming on the grill or glimpse your first view of the monuments that shape the capital. Today’s Optional Experience will pair a cruise along the Seine with a scenic drive taking in many of the city’s main sights from the sculpture lined Pont Alexandre III to the towering ironwork of the Eiffel Tower.

Today, your Travel Director guides you along Paris’s grand boulevards, through the heart of the city towards the Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Élysées. The pavement stretches before grand avenues open out from the Arc like the points of a star. You may choose an Optional Experience to Montmartre, where you may catch the sweet buttery scent of crêpes wafting down cobbled streets and in Artist’s Square you explore neighbourhood once walked by Picasso and Dalí. An Optional Experience dinner will give you time to ease into the evening over food and conversation with your fellow travellers.

With Paris behind you, your route turns towards Beaune, a medieval town known for local wine, patterned roof tiles and centuries-old walls. You have time to explore the 15th-century Hôtel-Dieu, where patterned roof tiles echo the autumn colours of Burgundy vines and stone courtyards carry the sound of your footsteps between centuries-old walls. From Beaune, the focus will shift to Lyon, moving from local wine to a city known for classical French cuisine. An orientation tour with your Travel Director will help you get your bearings, with an Optional Experience offering the chance to follow Lyon through the flavours and traditions that helped make it famous.

South through the Rhône Valley, Aix-en-Provence awaits you with worn stone streets, shaded corners and town squares laid over natural hot springs first known to the Romans. During free time, you can follow the town through gold-toned stone, shaded squares and the low murmur of fountains, with the thought of warm springs still flowing beneath the Roman foundations. The road stretches beyond inland Provence towards the Mediterranean coast as Aix-en-Provence’s golden squares give way to Monaco’s elegant boulevards and the Côte d’Azur.

With a free day on the French Riviera, you could breathe in the fresh sea air with a stroll along the beach or join an Optional Experience to Saint-Paul-de-Vence. In this walled hill town, stone streets, old façades and a quieter hillside setting contrast with the Riviera’s sleek cars, private yachts and waterfront life. It’s another side of the coast, felt through old walls, narrow streets and a softer sense of style.

In Arles, Roman heritage lingers in the stonework around you, from streets and squares to riverside places that helped inspire Van Gogh’s paintings. You may choose an Optional Experience that follows the artist’s time in Arles more closely, moving through the scenes that helped shape his bold brushstrokes. Avignon brings you into the heart of Provence, where the Palais des Papes stands in pale fortress stone. The old city circled by chapels, thick walls and medieval ramparts. At the Pont du Gard, stones placed 2,000 years ago tower over you as you take in the arches of this first-century aqueduct.

Ahead of you, the hillside hardens into Carcassonne’s fortified stone walls, 12th-century architecture and turreted medieval castle. From there, the foothills of the Pyrénées carry you towards Lourdes. Your visit follows in the footsteps of millions of pilgrims who have travelled here to honour St Bernadette and visit the basilica above the Grotto, where she is said to have seen visions of the Virgin Mary. You may also have the opportunity to join a torchlight procession with the pilgrims, warm candlelight flickering through the crowd around you.

On the Atlantic coast, Biarritz sets you beside the ocean, with a resort-town elegance that has drawn European royalty since the 1800s. From the seafront, you might watch waves fold towards the shore or catch a glimpse of a local surfer gliding across the water. An Optional Experience into Basque Country takes you beyond sandy beaches towards lofty peaks. On the road to Bordeaux, the seaside gives way to rolling countryside as you travel through Les Landes.

At hilltop Saint-Émilion, château country spreads across the landscape below, with vineyards patterning the slopes beyond the village. You can choose an Optional Experience wine tasting at a French chateau, velvety tannins painting your palate while you hear the history of the vineyard. Later, you'll continue towards the Loire Valley, finishing at your hotel near Tours.

At Château de Chenonceau, the Cher River passes beneath you, lapping softly against the stone as your Local Specialist guides you across the checkered floor of the Long Gallery, crossed by royalty and resistance alike. Inside the Château, tapestries, paintings and Renaissance furniture fill the spaces with fabric, wood and the sense of lives once lived within these walls. Outside, the landscaped gardens draw you down garden paths and into the open air. In Amboise, Leonardo da Vinci’s presumed final resting place, you can wander through the town's beautiful Château grounds or simply gaze out at the Loire Valley unfolding before you. The final Chateau of the day is one of the world's most remarkable. Chateau de Chambord's scale and detail are made to be taken in slowly. Back in Tours, you may choose an Optional Experience: a final evening in the Old Town over Touraine cuisine in a traditional restaurant.

Mont Saint-Michel meets you in salt air and stone, its medieval town rising from a rocky outcrop above the sea. Here, you can hear how the Archangel inspired the Bishop of Avranches to build a church at the summit, a story that still feels woven into the abbey walls and narrow streets. At the D-Day beaches, the sea breeze mingles with whispers of history at the spot where Allied soldiers first landed on the French shore. At the Normandy American Cemetery above Omaha Beach, white marble headstones stand in long rows across the grass, with the sea stirring quietly beyond the bluff. Later, Deauville offers another face of Normandy, with its harbour, racecourse and long association with international film.

In Honfleur, you can follow the harbour’s edge past moored boats and water brushing the quay, catching the colour, reflections and harbour light Monet and other artists returned to on canvas. In Rouen, the place where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, your path runs through cobbled streets between Gothic churches and the carved stone of its cathedral, with rough walls, pointed arches and old city corners. Paris waits at the end of the day. You may choose an Optional Experience dinner and cabaret performance, with food, music and a sense of celebration.

This morning, your journey through France comes to an end. You’ll say a fond au revoir to your Travel Director and fellow travellers, taking the memories of the past 13 days with you as you begin the journey home.