If you don’t have a bus tour on your bucket list, perhaps you aren’t doing it right. I’ve got a Romantic Tour of Europe on my bucket list, however, I need to confess – I cheat.
I thought it was too hard to create my bucket list before I did something, so I simply do something grand and then place it on my bucket list. It gets a tick and I can continue to delude myself that I’m a high achiever, meeting all my goals. Better than being a loser, right?
When my wife signed us both up for a bus tour called the Romantic Tour of Europe, I had no idea what was to come. Looking back, I think it was one of the highlights of my touring experiences. Everyone should do it once.
We picked up our tour in Belgium, meeting others who had travelled from London overnight to join the tour. Our group consisted of 26 people, 22 Australians, two New Zealanders and a couple from the Philippines on their honeymoon. Everyone got on well together for the three weeks of the trip and surprisingly for a group of 26, there were no misfits.
Our tour guide Ruth was remarkable. She was an English lady who spoke five or six different languages fluently. Our bus driver was an Italian gentleman who understood English better than he spoke it and often relied on the tour guide to translate. He had the ability to squeeze the bus through some of the narrowest roads and laneways and the most daunting traffic without losing his cool. Remarkable!
In three weeks we went all over Europe — to France, Italy, Estonia, Russia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Switzerland, and more.
We visited numerous places of note, including the Vatican Museum, Versailles Palace, the canals of Venice, Catherine Palace and the Church of the Saviour on Blood at St Petersburg in Russia.
Each evening we stayed in a five-star hotel that included breakfast and, on numerous occasions, dinners. On several occasions we spent a couple of nights in the same hotel where we were able to attend to such things as our washing.
Our tour was a five-star tour, so all hotels and meals were five-star and when we arrived at or departed a venue, someone else attended to our larger luggage. The firm we travelled with had numbers of optional tours we could do at an additional cost. We did one or two, but didn’t do the others because there was enough to see and do to keep us busy and although we are accustomed to being active, occasionally we felt worn out after several hours of walking about sight-seeing.
One of the many advantages of visiting such places as the Vatican with a tour is that you get in and out of the venue without having to queue for hours. I wouldn’t normally queue anywhere for more than half an hour, so it was wonderful waiting 10 minutes and being led in through the special tour entrance.
Each of us had a wireless receiver through which our tour guide or one of the appointed local guides spoke to us about the sites. It made it much easier to hear because we were most often surrounded by people from other tour groups.
Three weeks was enough for me. I really enjoyed sitting back letting someone else drive and occasionally had a short nap between locations. Socialising with the others on the group was fun too, we had many laughs and enjoyed each other’s company. Some of us have agreed to catch up in future and are in contact via email.
There are different levels of tours catering to individual needs and the amount of money people wish to invest. There are also some good deals and discounts if you do your own research.
If you haven’t done a bus tour yet, I highly recommend it as an excellent experience.
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