Escorted European Bus Tours
A few years ago, I travelled with my then 14 year old daughter to Europe. I felt I didn't want to worry about finding our way around so I decided to book an escorted European bus tour. The thought of letting a bus driver worry about the traffic while we sat back in comfort and listened to the tour guide explain the country side and tells us what to expect at our next destination created a stress-free holiday for us to enjoy.
Some people love escorted bus tours because it frees them from complicated train schedules in foreign languages or spending lots of time behind the wheel, they take care of all the details of booking hotel rooms, choosing restaurants and deciding where to go and how long to stay. They walk you though or bus you past every attraction with an accompanying monologue on its history and importance.
Knowing your costs up front and having no surprises is a plus. Escorted tours take you to the maximum number of sights in the least amount of time with the least amount of hassles. Escorted bus tours tend to ride comfortably and unimaginatively in the deepest ruts of the beaten path, eschewing anything novel and treating the bulk of Europe like a living postcard to be seen through the tinted windows of a climate controlled bus.
Travelling through Spain and Portugal on this mother/daughter holiday was a unique bonding experience. We learned to deal with a very intense travel and touring schedule. As for every morning, it started up at 7am for breakfast followed by bus departures at 8am. Our days usually ended around 7pm with a new overnight stay at a different hotel. The fact of sleeping in a different city and hotel room added to the excitement of the journey. Each hotel was as different as the city and its people. Due to the extensive amounts of ground covered, our itinerary consisted of 3500 miles of travel between Spain and Portugal during a 17 day journey.
Our bus mates consisted of 38 persons ranging from Californians, Australians, New Zealand, and Canadians. It was a very unique group of individuals. We all respected each other and made sure we kept an eye out for each other when people tended to stray from the group. Everyone made it a point to stay on time at each stop in order to maximum the amount of sites to visit.
Our tour guide was very energetic and informative about the next sites to visit. She gave us the overview of what to expect. Once we arrived at each destination a local tour guide would escort us and educated us on the history of the city in which we were at the time. Each individual tour guide from the respective city visited, delivered a passion for their city which made the site seeing all that much enjoyable considering we visited these countries during the latter part of August and the weather was extremely hot and humid.
Some of the highlights of our European Bus journey consisted of Madrid, Toledo, Avila, Seville, Barcelona, Cordoba, Granada, Lisbon, Sintra, and Obidos. With the amount of ground we covered I felt we would have not seen as much had we gone on our own. The lifetime memories and friends we made on that trip will always be remembered by both myself and my daughter.
