• 8 Dinner (D)
• 25 Breakfast (B)

• Vatican City: Visit the Vatican Museums and witness the genius of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel.

Join an excursion to the Eagle’s Nest near Berchtesgaden, a mountaintop site noted for its Alpine setting and complex 20th-century history. The visit offers a different perspective on the mountains around Salzburg.

Built during the Nazi era, the site calls for an understanding of its historical context alongside appreciation of the surrounding landscape. The itinerary does not specify the precise route or inclusions of the visit. This optional experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Insight Vacations

• Hand sanitizer is freely available on board for you to use throughout the day.

• Business class coach with extended leg room
• Top-rated dining, from farm-to-table to local restaurants
• 4 & 5-star stays

Discover Paris with your Travel Director on an orientation through its grand avenues. See the Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Élysées, and take in the monumental scale of Place de la Concorde.

These landmarks reveal a city shaped by royal ambition, revolution and 19th-century redesign. The broad boulevards offer a useful introduction to the capital’s distinct neighbourhoods and an opportunity to appreciate its architecture from street level.

Join your Travel Director and fellow travellers for a welcome dinner at a Parisian brasserie. Settle into the lively rhythm of a local restaurant as you share a meal and get to know the group.

Brasseries are a familiar part of Parisian dining culture, valued for their convivial tables and unhurried atmosphere. This hosted evening offers a sociable introduction to the city rather than simply a meal between sightseeing stops.

Visit Château de Chenonceau, the Loire Valley château whose elegant gallery spans the River Cher. Explore a landmark celebrated for its graceful 16th-century design and its unusual position over the water.

Known as the Ladies’ Château, Chenonceau was shaped by influential women including Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de’ Medici. Its architecture and gardens evoke the Loire’s Renaissance courtly culture, while the river setting makes it one of the region’s most recognisable sights.

Walk through Bordeaux with a Local Expert, taking in its pale quayside facades, the Grand Théâtre, the Triangle d’Or and the expansive Esplanade des Quinconces. The tour reveals the symmetry and scale of the city’s historic centre.

Much of Bordeaux’s urban ensemble is UNESCO World Heritage-listed. Its 18th-century streets reflect the prosperity of a major port, giving you a closer understanding of the architecture beyond the region’s famous vineyards.

Explore San Sebastián’s Old Quarter with a Local Expert, following its compact streets to Plaza de la Constitución. Discover the setting for the city’s celebrated pintxos culture and its everyday Basque street life.

Once used for bullfights, the square still has numbered balconies that recall its former role as a viewing arena. The walk provides a closer look at a neighbourhood where historic facades, local gathering places and food traditions sit side by side.

Experience a progressive pintxos dinner in San Sebastián’s Old Town. Move between local bars in a small group, choosing snack-sized dishes from the counter and sharing in a Basque evening tradition.

Pintxos range from simple combinations on bread to carefully assembled small plates, each bar offering its own specialities. You may also choose to try Txakoli, the region’s lightly sparkling wine. The pleasure lies as much in the convivial bar-hopping ritual as in the food.

Explore Plaza del Castillo in Pamplona and step inside Café Iruña, where tiled floors, ornate mirrors and dark wood preserve the feel of an earlier era. These distinctive places offer an introduction to Navarre’s historic capital.

The café is associated with Ernest Hemingway, whose writing helped bring international attention to Pamplona and its San Fermín festival. Seeing it in person adds a literary dimension to the city’s squares and long-standing café culture.

Discover Barcelona with a Local Expert, viewing the Gothic Quarter and cathedral before travelling by La Rambla and along Passeig de Gràcia. Continue through the Eixample to see the Sagrada Família rise above its ordered street grid.

The route contrasts medieval lanes with Barcelona’s exuberant Modernista architecture. Gaudí’s still-evolving basilica makes the city’s architectural ambition especially clear. The experience is a sightseeing tour; entry to the Sagrada Família is not specified.

Stroll along Nice’s Promenade des Anglais and look across the sweeping Bay of Angels. Palms, seafront buildings and the changing colour of the Mediterranean give this stretch of the Côte d’Azur its distinctive character.

The promenade takes its name from the English visitors who helped develop it in the 19th century, when Nice became a fashionable winter resort. Walking its waterfront offers a direct sense of the Riviera’s enduring mix of seaside life and cosmopolitan elegance.

Follow part of Monaco’s Grand Prix circuit by road, experiencing the unusually tight streets that have hosted Formula 1 racing since 1929. Explore the old town with your Travel Director and see the Prince’s Palace above the yacht-filled harbour.

The principality’s steep geography brings its racing heritage, royal landmarks and Mediterranean waterfront remarkably close together. This orientation shows how Monaco’s historic centre and modern maritime glamour fit within one compact city-state.

Choose to visit the Prince’s Palace of Monaco and explore its State Apartments. Admire the Italian Renaissance frescoes and formal rooms associated with the princely family in a residence overlooking the Mediterranean.

The palace has served as a Grimaldi stronghold and royal home for centuries, giving its interiors a significance beyond their decoration. This is one of two included Monaco Insight Choice activities; travellers select it instead of the Oceanographic Museum visit.

Choose to explore Monaco’s Oceanographic Museum, perched above the Mediterranean. View aquariums devoted to Mediterranean and tropical seas, and learn about marine science and research in polar environments.

Founded by Prince Albert I in 1910, the museum reflects his deep interest in ocean exploration. Its collections connect the life beneath the sea with efforts to understand and protect it. This is one of two included Monaco Insight Choice activities; travellers select it instead of the Prince’s Palace visit.

Taste the Côte d’Azur at a seasonal farm-to-table dinner featuring ingredients sourced from the region and specialities associated with Nice. This hosted meal places local produce at the centre of the evening.

Nicoise cooking draws on Mediterranean vegetables, herbs, olive oil and the flavours of the coast. Sharing dishes inspired by those traditions offers a more grounded encounter with the Riviera than its glamorous reputation alone might suggest.

Explore Pisa’s Square of Miracles with a Local Expert and see the Leaning Tower beside the cathedral and baptistery. Pause to appreciate the white-marble monuments and the tower’s unmistakable tilt.

The cathedral complex expresses Pisa’s medieval wealth and artistic ambition. Galileo is traditionally associated with experiments at the tower, though the story remains debated. The experience focuses on viewing the monuments in the square; climbing the tower or entering the buildings is not specified.

Walk through Florence with a Local Expert to view its marble-clad cathedral, bell tower and baptistery, including the celebrated Gates of Paradise. Explore Piazza della Signoria, the city’s long-standing political heart.

In the square, see sculpture outside the Palazzo Vecchio, including Neptune and a replica of Michelangelo’s David. The walk brings Florence’s civic power and Renaissance artistry into focus through the streets and public spaces where both were displayed.

Discover Rome with your Travel Director on an orientation to the Eternal City. See how medieval buildings, Renaissance palaces and Baroque churches sit among traces of an older classical past.

Rome’s layers of history are visible in its streets as well as its major monuments. This introduction helps you recognise the contrasts that define the capital: intimate piazzas, imposing facades and architecture shaped by centuries of religious and civic power.

Explore Vatican City with a Local Expert, visiting the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel to see collections assembled by the popes and Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes. Visit St Peter’s Basilica to view the Pietà and Bernini’s papal altar.

The experience brings together centuries of art, faith and patronage in the world’s smallest independent state. Access may be restricted on some departures; if Vatican Museums tickets are unavailable, a visit to Rome’s Capitoline Museums is offered instead.

Sip a sunset cocktail in Venice while an ensemble of musicians plays, before gathering for dinner at a local restaurant. The setting offers a chance to experience the city’s evening atmosphere as its waterways and historic facades soften in the fading light.

Venice has long paired public squares and waterside gathering places with music and sociable dining. This hosted evening makes those traditions part of the experience rather than treating dinner as a routine meal.

Visit a traditional Venetian glassblowing workshop and watch skilled artisans shape molten glass by hand. Learn about the techniques behind delicate finished pieces and the precision required to work with the glowing material.

Venice’s glassmaking tradition is closely associated with Murano and has developed over centuries through specialist knowledge passed between craftspeople. Seeing a demonstration makes the labour and expertise behind this distinctive decorative art visible.

Travel by boat along the Giudecca Canal as your Travel Director introduces Venice from the water. Pass historic palazzi and view the Doge’s Palace before reaching St Mark’s Square, where the basilica reflects the city’s former wealth and influence.

Arriving by water reveals the perspective from which generations of merchants and visitors encountered the maritime republic. The experience combines a cruise with an orientation to Venice’s principal civic landmarks; basilica entry is not specified.

Walk Ljubljana’s riverbanks and squares with a Local Expert, seeing Prešeren Square and the Triple Bridge, City Hall, the cathedral dedicated to St Nicholas and Ljubljana Castle above the city.

The compact centre mixes Baroque buildings with the work of architect Jože Plecnik, whose bridges and public spaces helped shape modern Ljubljana. Following the Ljubljanica on foot reveals how its civic landmarks remain closely connected to the city’s everyday life.

Explore Maribor with your Travel Director and take in the mix of historic and contemporary architecture in Slovenia’s second-largest city. The visit offers time to observe the character of this long-established town beside the Drava River.

Maribor has roots as a medieval trading centre and later became a university city. Its varied streetscape provides a different perspective on Slovenia from the capital, with older buildings and newer additions reflecting the city’s continuing evolution.

Tour Vienna with a Local Expert, travelling around the Ringstrasse to see the Opera House, Parliament and Hofburg Imperial Residence. Walk through the Innere Stadt, the capital’s historic first district, and discover its grand public spaces.

The Ringstrasse was developed along the line of Vienna’s former city walls, creating a monumental setting for 19th-century institutions. The tour connects that imperial vision with the older streets at the centre of Habsburg Vienna.

Choose to visit Vienna’s Capuchin Crypt, the historic burial place of generations of the Habsburg dynasty. Explore a site that offers an intimate, solemn perspective on the family whose rule shaped much of Central Europe.

The crypt’s tombs and memorials express changing ideas of dynastic power, faith and remembrance. It offers a marked contrast to Vienna’s palaces and ceremonial boulevards. This is one of two included Vienna Insight Choice activities; travellers select it instead of the coffeehouse visit.

Choose to visit a traditional Viennese coffeehouse for coffee and a slice of Sachertorte, the city’s well-known chocolate cake. Settle into a setting built around conversation, newspapers and time taken over a cup.

Vienna’s coffeehouse culture has long provided a meeting place for writers, artists and everyday residents. Sampling its specialities offers a relaxed way to experience that social tradition. This is one of two included Vienna Insight Choice activities; travellers select it instead of the Capuchin Crypt visit.

Explore Salzburg with a Local Expert, visiting the Mirabell Palace gardens and Residence Square. See the cathedral, the fortress above the old town and Mozart’s birthplace on Getreidegasse.

Mirabell’s formal gardens and the square featured in scenes from The Sound of Music, while the city’s Baroque streets speak to its history as a prince-archbishopric. The walk brings Salzburg’s musical associations and architectural heritage together in its compact historic centre.

Stroll through Innsbruck’s Old Town with your Travel Director, viewing the Golden Roof and Imperial Palace against a backdrop of Tyrolean mountains. Notice the Gothic and Baroque details along its narrow streets.

The Golden Roof was created around the turn of the 16th century for Emperor Maximilian I, reflecting Innsbruck’s importance within the Habsburg world. The walk offers a close look at how imperial history sits within an Alpine city still defined by its dramatic setting.

Spend time in Vaduz, Liechtenstein’s compact capital, and admire Vaduz Castle on the hillside above the town. The castle’s commanding position and surrounding Alpine scenery give a clear sense of the principality’s setting.

The castle remains the residence of Liechtenstein’s princely family and is not presented as an interior visit. Seeing it from the capital offers a distinctive glimpse of one of Europe’s smallest states, where royal residence, town and mountain landscape lie close together.

Discover three of Lucerne’s landmarks: visit the Lion Monument, stroll across the covered Chapel Bridge and see the Baroque Jesuit Church beside the Reuss. Together, they show different facets of the lakeside city.

Carved into rock, the Lion Monument commemorates Swiss Guards who died defending Louis XVI during the French Revolution. Chapel Bridge recalls medieval Lucerne, while the church reflects the city’s later religious and artistic history.

Ride a solar-powered, open-top cable car towards Mount Stanserhorn’s summit and take in broad Alpine views. Walk scenic paths in the mountain air, watching for marmots and other native wildlife.

On clear days, the panorama can extend towards Alsace and Germany’s Black Forest. There may also be an opportunity to hear a Swiss ranger discuss local flora and conservation. This MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® experience connects the pleasure of the mountain landscape with care for its habitats.

Choose a restaurant for a Dine-Around evening in Lucerne, selecting the setting and cuisine that appeal to you. This included dining experience offers a more personal way to spend an evening in the lakeside city.

Lucerne’s restaurant scene reflects its Swiss setting and international visitors, with different atmospheres available for a shared meal. Rather than following a single group menu in one venue, you can shape the evening around your own dining preferences.

Cruise the Rhine from Boppard to Sankt Goar, sipping local wine as terraced vineyards, riverside villages and hilltop castles pass by. Look out for the Lorelei Rock, a landmark woven into the river’s legends.

This stretch of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley has long been an important route for trade and travel. Viewing its steep slopes from the water shows why its castles, wine-growing landscape and folklore have made it one of Europe’s most storied river corridors.

Step aboard an Amsterdam canal cruise with dinner, sharing a final evening with fellow travellers as bridges, gabled houses and churches pass beside the boat. After dark, reflections add another dimension to the waterways.

The city’s UNESCO-listed canal district was laid out during Amsterdam’s 17th-century Golden Age. Seeing its merchant houses from the water reveals the close relationship between the canals and the trading city that grew around them.

Experience a Paris cabaret performance combining live music, elaborate costumes and dinner. The evening offers a theatrical alternative to exploring the city independently after dark.

Cabaret has been part of Parisian nightlife since the late 19th century, bringing music, dance and spectacle into intimate entertainment venues. This optional experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour; the specific venue and show are not identified in the itinerary.

Travel into Bordeaux wine country to tour a château’s cellars and taste local wines. Visit Saint-Émilion and see its remarkable monolithic church, carved directly into the limestone.

The area’s vineyards and historic town form part of a UNESCO-listed cultural landscape shaped by centuries of winemaking. The combination of cellar visit, tasting and village exploration connects the wine in your glass with the place it comes from. This optional experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Explore the French Basque coast with a Local Specialist, visiting Biarritz and Saint-Jean-de-Luz. Discover Biarritz’s resort heritage before seeing the church where Louis XIV married the Spanish princess Maria Theresa in 1660.

Grand hotels recall Biarritz’s fashionable spa-era past, while Saint-Jean-de-Luz preserves the setting of a marriage with major diplomatic significance. Together, the towns show contrasting sides of the Atlantic coast. This optional experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Visit Pompeii, the Roman town buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Explore the archaeological site for a close encounter with streets and buildings preserved beneath volcanic material.

Pompeii’s remains offer unusually direct evidence of everyday life in an ancient city, from its urban layout to traces of homes and public spaces. This excursion is offered as an alternative to a day spent independently in Rome. It is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Visit Lake Bled and ride a traditional wooden pletna boat across its glacial waters towards the small island at its centre. Enjoy views of the lake’s wooded shores and the Alpine landscape around them.

The pletna is a distinctive local way of crossing the water, adding a cultural element to the scenery. The island and lakeside setting have made Bled one of Slovenia’s best-known landscapes. This optional experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Join a private tour of Schonbrunn Palace and its formal gardens, associated with Empress Maria Theresa. Explore an imperial residence whose grand rooms and carefully planned grounds reflect the public and private life of the Habsburg court.

Schonbrunn became a central stage for dynastic life and remains one of Vienna’s most significant historic sites. Its gardens extend the palace’s sense of order and ceremony into the open air. This optional experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.