Personalized trips to France
for independent travelers

Overall, the arrangements were excellent. The hotel was lovely and as long as folks are walkers like us, it’s well located. Otherwise, folks would be taking taxi or Metro which is fine too if they are comfortable with that.

Tours:
• Saturday - Walking/eating tour. Nathan was very personable, knowledgeable, with good sense of humor, coped well with our request to speak in French and we enjoyed the tour. Good introduction to the city. Food stops were great. Just two other people with us on that tour, a local French couple who don’t come into the big city too often and were delightful company.

• Sunday- we were on our own and walked and walked trying to find the market which turned out to be a long, uphill walk. The market was colorful and full of fresh veggies/fruits mostly. There was a large portion of the area that was dedicated to carnival rides, attractions and fair food. Because it was Sunday the area was full of young families enjoying the day. It was interesting, we saw a lot of the city but we probably needed to do more research to focus our day.

• Monday- E-bike, 4-hour tour. Bruno, our guide, was wonderful. He does need to know when to stop talking about politics but otherwise, sensitive to our needs, knowledgeable about the city and its history, architecture and best views. Despite the separate bike and pedestrian paths, construction and vehicle barriers and city traffic made navigating on an unfamiliar bike challenging. We would say that one needs more than a passing level of skill with an E-bike. The beautiful park Tete D’Or with bike avenues was much easier. The choices were either 2- or 4-hr tours and only 3 of us chose the 4-hour tour. We did the food stop, warmed up (it was cold and rainy); then Bruno suggested we take the funicular to the Basilica due to rain (ponchos included with the bike) and the steep climb; the rest of the tour was on foot. Bruno showed us the gorgeous church upstairs and down providing lots of details about the history. Our tour ended up being a total of six hours. Though we loved the tour, we were flagging by the end and had to walk the whole way down because the funicular was closed for repairs.

Our guide Francois
One common denominator of our last two tours, both of which were private, was the outstanding skill of our guide, Francois. He bore up so well under our fledgling efforts to speak French, he shared his passion of the subject(s) and he shared immense amounts of history, culture, architecture as well as knowledge and appreciation for French local wines. Those last two days in Lyon were so valuable and enjoyable because of his gentlemanly manner and broad knowledge.

• Tuesday - French Resistance Tour 4-hour private tour.(it was reported in our itinerary to be a 3-hour tour though we were happy to spend four hours on the subject) This is a “don’t miss” tour because the history of the war years, the valor of the French citizens who sought to defy their occupiers and the cause of the French republic is a Lyon story that we all should know.

• Wednesday - Beaujolais and Burgundy wine tour. Previously we did not have a good impression of Beaujolais wine, perhaps because of drinking only Beaujolais Nouveau in the past. We’ll look for Beaujolais now that we’ve tasted wonderful examples. As we drove further north, the wines were more interesting to us, Chateau Pierreclos was fabulous, for the chateau itself and, of course, the wines. Our last stop was Burgundy white wines that were fabulous. The variety of wineries- small, family run with the tasting led by the owner, the chateau with its wonderful buildings and welcoming staff (red and white wines) and the more modern looking Nadine Ferrand -Le vin au feminin, with the tasting led by the owner’s daughter and ending with its Premier Cru white wine - was excellent and a totally enjoyable day.

Audrey was easy to work with, prompt in her responses and adaptable to our needs. Our private tour in the Camargue was a highlight of the trip. Alex was enthusiastic and incredibly knowledgeable. Le Negresco in Nice was extraordinary and worth the extra expense. Our private driver from Arles to Nîmes was so kind. He gave us a tour of Nîmes, the Jardin du Fountain, while we waited to pick up our rental car. The flexibility in our itinerary allowed for lots of exploring on our own which was important to us.

Hotel Reviews

Hotel Le Negresco

Nice

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Boutique Hotel Cezanne

Aix-en-Provence

Authenticity & Character

Location

Request room off street.

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Room and bathroom were not clean. Live mouse in breakfast area.

La Maison Volver

13200

Authenticity & Character

Lovely staff, good breakfast, clean spacious rooms.

Location

The location is good for walking the town but too loud for sleeping.

Staff

Very helpful and kind.

Cleanliness & Comfort

Clean room, comfortable bed. Just loud due to location on main street

Activity Review

Self-guided exploration of Aigues-Mortes and Safari in Camargue

France

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Overall Mathilde did a great job of planning our intinerary to france/ paris. Reflecting back, I think we would use mathilde and her team again but in a limited way. A few notes on why not a perfect score:
- I wish she asked further on our preference for smaller items such as "what is your preferred time for train travel", or "please note some unique details on your itinerary like it says "welcome to paris enjoy a free day in paris" but please note that we have put you on a night time train so there will not be a free day in paris. however, I also should have read the very small details in the area of the schedule that says "click here for more details". but we made the assumption of hiring a travel agent, and paying the higher price for the convience of them working through the details and communicating with us on small items like this. We now know for next time, or we just wouldnt use them for items like that.
- we did ask for the last day to be open and we will plan on our own as we booked 2 private appointments for dress shopping and a different private appoitment for a shopping and a specialized reservation, however mathilde and her team completed ignored this on two occasions and just scheduled over and did not ask us what time we would want them to book a train etc to accomodate our time. we also reminded them of these pre booked items and to check in with us but they never did. However, when they did double book us, they were accomodating to try to rebook which was nice.
- lastly, mathilde reccomended 2.5 days in the small village reims, in hind sight we wish we only did a day trip as it is really limited what to do in the smaller towns. Now that is kind of a shame on us as we should have trusted less and done our own research and insisted a revised schedule. As well, we currenlty live in a big city with much to do so that may have jaded our view of the town. But overall they were accomodating when we asked to change things.