Category Archive: Best of Europe

What I Found in Luxembourg

I wasn’t sure about Luxembourg. I enjoyed it as a largely clueless tourist, but would it satisfy the discerning Europhile I had in mind for a tour member? I’ve lived in and love… Continue reading

Why Rotterdam?

People ask me that a lot, and I’m never sure how to answer. Partially, there are so many reasons to love this city, I have to choose where to start for that person.… Continue reading

What is Benelux? (And why you should go there)

When I mention my tour of Benelux, people sometimes ask “What is that?” This is understandable, since Benelux, like Holland, is not on any map, even though most of the people asking the… Continue reading

How Do We Travel in an Age of Travelers?

How do you take a group of people to see the Sistine Chapel? A guided tour of the Vatican Museums is a rugby match between 50 teams at once, played out in beautiful… Continue reading

European spring 2022

The night before my first tour of Europe after two years of covid-enforced sabbatical, I wrote a post about the energy filling my mind and rattling through my body. But then I took… Continue reading

The Salt Mines of Salina Turda

Have you ever taken one of those glass-sided “sky elevators”? Up the side of the Victor Emmanuel Monument in Rome, in the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid, and China has a doozy or… Continue reading

The benefit of an alpine lake

Today I would have taken my group to “mad” (entirely sane) King Ludwig’s fairytale Neuschwanstein Castle. Folks invariably enjoy it, albeit amazed at the tourist swam. Afterward, we sit down to a picnic… Continue reading

King’s Day Anyway

The Dutch sky hadn’t decided if it was going to rain or not when I snuck out of the hotel around six in the morning. The student staff of the best hotel in… Continue reading

Two days away

My next tour starts in two days, and I know what the hardest part will be. A tour is an odd blend of likelihood and happenstance, earned probability and inevitable surprises. Will we… Continue reading

What are you going to do now, Paris?

Standing in front of Notre Dame Cathedral I had a lot of answers. 12-14th century, Judean Kings, and here are 10 things you can do tonight. Another 21-day tour almost finished, I was… Continue reading