Highlights of France and Barcelona Reviews

Overall the included and optional experiences were amazing with enough photo opportunities, but not always enough time to fully enjoy. Various occasions where time was wasted waiting around. Paris highlight was Montmartre with Moulin Rouge as a disappointment. Dine with Me in Tours was amazing, but the included hotel dinners were not great - breakfast ...read more options were way better. Hotels were really poor, considering they were all ACCOR hotels. St Paul de Vince was very interesting; well worth the time and money. Montserrat was amazing and definitely need more time to fully enjoy. Our guide was well informed with a lot of knowledge to share. We had a very competent driver. Majority of the local guides were brilliant, some better than others with regards to time management.

We had excellent accommodation. Our Travel Director Giovanna was a lovely knowledgeable young lady and nothing was too much of an effort for her. Our drive Jose was amazing. He was a very competent driver and the way he handled some of those winding roads was fantastic both my husband and I felt very safe. The only thing i was disappointed with was ...read more the optional excursion we chose which was the Flamenco dinner & show.

Our Tavel director Bruno was an angel and super gorgeous as well. He certainly made our trip special. We had a great tour group and whilst the triple share was sometimes a bit tight on space for the most part our accommodation was of a good standard. Remember the extra towels please housekeeping. The sightseeing lived up to its promises and I would ...read more recommend to my friends.

The tour and places visited were most interesting and enjoyable. We were sorry to miss the final night Dinner in order to board our cruise. The reason for taking the tour was to give us a leisurely trip from Paris to Barcelona - this it certainly did. We particularly enjoyed our Dinner in the french countryside at the establishment run by the 80 yr ...read more old lady, sorry I have forgotten her name. Our Tour Leader David Moore was friendly, sincere, knowledgeable and hard working. (We only arrived home yesterday as we had a 3 week cruise and 3 days in Barcelona. Now need another holiday.) Many thanks Yvonne.

We undertook two tours, the second of which was a Trafalgar tour of France and Spain, which was excellent, and with just 29 on board it was much easy to move around and to get to know people. The pace was slightly more relaxed than on our Globus UK tour. The Tour Guide, Martine Carr was extremely pleasant, competent, and had all the info at her fingertips. ...read more The driver also was very competent and managed to negotiate some very tight spots indeed. A couple of times he was caught out by his GPS on roads he was unfamiliar with, but it caused no real dramas. The Trafalgar tour coach was better than the Globus coaches as far as comfort was concerned. All accommodation was top notch, and the included meals were also excellent. Given that it was France and the 'Home of quality Wines' we were most disappointed with the poor wines we were served with our included meals though. The 'Be My Guest' dinner was truly excellent, but the optional Flaminco Dancing after the Farewell dinner in Barcellona was quite uninspiring. All the places we visited were fantastic and well worth seeing - particularly Paris, Monte Carlo, St Paul, & Montserrat Monastery amonst many others. There were a few very long days of travelling where some good tourist spots - even Wineries could have been included to break up the long hours sitting in the coach. The truck stops we used instead on the Freeways were very ordinary. The first long haul was from Bourges to a truck stop near Vichy, the second was from there to Lyon, the third was from Lyon to Chateauuneuf du Pape north of Avignon, the fourth was from Avignon to Nice, and the largest and most uninteresting haul was from Cannes to Barcelona with some very ordinary truckstops along the way. The long distances had to be done, but some enjoyable scenic/tourist breaks would have helped. Perhaps an extra day and stop overnight near Marseille could be considered to break up this last haul, or alternatively have a different tour that finishes at Nice or Marseille and their airports. Overall these minor negatives were outweighed by the fantastic places we visited and saw, and the expert commentary. The detailed tour information, patient guidance and help from Yvonne Brooks from Global Journeys was fantastic, and she made our first time overseas trip a hassle-free experience. I would strongly recommend this tours to anyone who wants to see a lot of France in a short time, who wants value for money, and is prepared to be 'busy'. (GJ: Review split over two tours taken.)