Provence Wine Tours

Audrey created an outstanding itinerary for our trip to France, covering Paris, Marseille, Nice, and a wonderful day trip to Monaco. She took the time to truly understand our preferences and crafted a plan that exceeded our expectations. We were extremely pleased with every aspect of the trip—the duration was ideal, and the hotels were perfectly located, making it easy for us to explore the city centers on foot.

Audrey also suggested destinations we hadn’t originally considered, such as Monaco, Eze, and Monte Carlo, and included them as a day trip, which turned out to be one of the highlights of our vacation. The visit to the Luberon Villages was just the right length and absolutely delightful.

Overall, our experience was five stars. I highly recommend Kim Kim and Audrey to anyone planning a trip to France!

Hotel Reviews

Hotel de la Fontaine

Nice

Nice location and clean

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Escale Oceania Marseille Vieux Port

Marseille

This hotel was very old. It served us the purpose but staff can be a little friendly.

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Hôtel Queen Mary

Paris

Excellent location and clean!

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Day excursion to Monaco, Monte-Carlo and Eze

Nice

Too good and perect day outing.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Luberon markets and villages

Marseille

Excellent! Not to miss this day trip!

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Visit of the Eiffel Tower with access to the summit

Paris

It was a 9 PM ticket and perfect for a greta night view of the city.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

The pleasures of Provence are legendary, and the Kimkim team was instrumental in helping us to delight in them. Our guides were interesting people in their own right, affable, informed, humorous, efficient and invariably reliable. I’m quite old and I have my share of infirmities—but the guides, Adie and Greg, were alert to these and truly helpful in accommodating my needs. To Lucie we owe the wonderful idea of cooking a meal in a chef’s kitchen, for me the high point of the trip, including as it did a trip to the market for the ingredients of our meal. (Special praise is due to the chef, who said, after our trip to the market, “For this afternoon, my kitchen is your home.”) Lucie also accommodated us when we needed to make changes in our arrangements and was, from the first, always accessible. The drivers from and to the airport in Nice were on time and very helpful, though there was some confusion about the dropoff in Nice, which I attribute to the hotel. I couldn’t have made this trip without the Kimkim team.

Hotel Review

Grand Hôtel Roi René Aix-en-Provence Centre – MGallery

Aix-en-Provence

Entirely comfortable and adequate, though the open shower was a bit hard to manage. Breakfasts were quite ample and quite good.

Authenticity & Character

Location

A bit distant from the center of activity in Aix, but not a problem for a good walker.

Staff

Very pleasant and helpful, but could do better in helping us to change large Euros

Cleanliness & Comfort

very clean, beds very comfortable, shower a bit hard to manage

Activity Reviews

Private Provençale Cooking Class & Lunch

Aix-en-Provence

I have commented on this in my written review. It was, for me, the high point of the trip, and Emma, the chef, was wonderful: I’ll never forget her welcome to her kitchen and the pleasure of shopping for, cooking and eating a meal with her.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Guided Tour of the Bastide du Jas de Bouffan

Aix-en-Provence

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

ignore—we had no Kimkim driver or fuide for this event

Transport

ignore—we furnished our own transport

All five stars… except the following which we submit to help both KimKim and your future customers:
Transfer from airport to hotel was perfect. Hotel wonderful, quirky and close to the train station. Tell your customers to learn the train early to avoid pricy taxis.
While waiting for the hotel to be ready, we walked to the Big Bus and did a two hour lap around Paris. Excellent. But the hotel was not ready for us so we sat way too long. If I hadn’t been a bit pushy we might still be waiting! Finally we got a room at past three PM. They promised us noon!
Louvre and Notre Dame in one day was too much. Guide Ed was absolutely fantastic. Use him as often as you can.
Trip to Versailles was ok. We have seen palaces before and this one was similar. However the guide had too many people and she was often talking French to other people so our ear pieces were confusing. Back to Paris for a brief moment before dinner at Eiffel’s place. Fantastic. But you could suggest customers not flash the pink ticket to get off the elevator at the first stop and go to two for free for a couple of minutes. Then back to one for first rate dinner and view.
Transfers from hotel to train and from train to new hotel went well.
Hotel in Arramoush (sp) beautiful and we thank you for adding the breakfast. Both excursion trips were good and the free day on Sunday was a welcome break but a great day. Transfer to ferry went well and the driver helped us to the check in area. He received our last 5 Euro note!
We arrived in England broke! But found our hotel and an ATM.
I forgot to comment on Champagne; great tour. Great guide.
D-Day tour was great. But arrival time for lunch was so late, all restaurants were closed/soldout.
Mount St Michael has over 300 stairs and we are both still sore! Guide, Lou, was very good and interesting (and a cutie).
Thanks, Liz. We appreciate everything you did.
When in Southampton, or anywhere probably, don’t use MOXY by Marriott. Room smaller than a cruise cabin. No shelves, storage, phone, safe. Also no A/C!

Hotel Reviews

Les Villas d'Arromanches

Arromanches-les-Bains

We thought the commute to the meeting place in Bayaux was inconvenient but we are so lucky to have stayed in Arromanches. The hotel was fantastic. The breakfast excellent (except the day we checked out very early). Having a Sunday without plans worked out well. The 360 movie at the far end of town was excellent and tied together all of the D-Day sites we visited. Big lunches and light dinner was the plan most days.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Hotel OFF Paris Seine 4*

Paris

Fantastic views. Waving to the dinner boats as they went by was fun. Slightly disappointed that they didn’t have our room ready. At 9:30 they promised noon and even advised that the previous guests had already checked out. We napped by the pool and finally were invited to our room at 3:15 PM. Extremely long day as we flew overnight and were in France at 6 AM. Excellent breakfast three days but missed one day because our Champagne tour started early.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Mont-Saint-Michel Day Trip

Bayeux

Long drive but interesting. (We all slept on the return trip!) Lou was a great guide. She told us good stories and lied to us about just how many more steps! Note; this is hard on 71 year old people with aches and pains already.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Lou was a cutie!

Transport

Omaha & Utah Beach War History Day Trip

Bayeux

This is why we came! Guide was extremely good. Great stories. Enough time at each stop. We cried at the cemetery. And prayed at the chapel. Guide took special interest in helping us find anything to do with the USS Nevada. We located a plaque at Utah Beach saying the ship was 5.6 miles off shore. Great history. The last stop at a church that was used by the medics was a great story/coincidence. One problem was our lunch break was very late and none of the restaurants could seat us. Terrible “club sandwich” was thick stale bread and thin slices of dry ham/cheese.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Champagne Region Day Trip with Tastings

Paris

Long taxi to the meeting play. But the restaurant was open for breakfast. Scope out the others in the group because we split into two groups for the rest of the day. Small winery was absolutely fantastic. Informative and very good quality Champagne. Visit to Reims Notre Dame was good. Big winery was a bit overwhelming. Quick stop at Dom P’s grave was interesting and a scenic stop later on was nice. Very good lunch somewhere. Donna may have pictures to help identify.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Wish bus had a toilet.

Eiffel Tower Madame Brasserie Dinner

Paris

Dinner of a lifetime. Note that the ground floor meeting place looks closed until check in time when the blinds rise. Be in that line. Then go up and don’t get off at the first stop. Have a quick look at the second stop and come back down for the dinner reservation. Window view is well worth it.

Quality of Experience

Food

Versailles Essentials – Half-Day Tour

Paris

No rest room at the meeting point. Then long bus ride with many groups. Our guide was talking non stop to others as well as us. The free time in the gardens was good.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Private Notre-Dame & Sainte-Chapelle Visit

Paris

Long line at Saints-Chapelle so we skipped it. Long line at Notre Dame but worth it. Again Ed’s knowledge was great. Ed also found us a lovely restaurant for lunch in between and came back to pick us up prior to Notre Dame.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Private Louvre Museum Visit

Paris

Pricy taxi but once we found Ed, all was excellent. His guidance through the ancient Egyptian displays was top notch. He made sure we saw the “big three”. Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa, and a horse with an angel on it.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Ed is attentive to our needs and pace.

Transport

Learn the train!

Free Day in Paris

Paris

Big Bus on our own. Pretty good way to see everything in order to plan the rest of the stay.