SPOTLIGHT ON FRANCE:
"Lavender Roads" & the French Riviera: Two Perfect Summer Destinations

With airfares to Europe lower than ever, the time is right to book a summer getaway to France. Read on to learn about two great places to enjoy a French midsummer’s dream.

Join one of Well Arranged Travel’s all-time favorite day trips: a sensual journey through the fragrant, colorful lavender fields of Provence. All of your senses will be awakened in this fantastic tour. First, a scenic drive on a steep, winding road takes you to the heights of the rugged Nesque River canyons. On your way down, you will be treated to an aerial view of the fields below, striped with golden wheat and purple lavender. You will take several photo stops in the lavender fields and have some free time in the beautiful medieval town of Sault on market days. After a traditional Provençal lunch, you will learn all the benefits of the purple flower in a traditional lavender distillery. You will also taste some lavender honey or some homemade nougat, returning home with a fresh bouquet to sweeten up your hotel boudoir. Explore Well Arranged Travel’s customizable day trips to Provence, including “Lavender Roads,” here.

If you prefer decadence of the manmade kind, then a day trip to the nearby Côte d’Azur – aka the French Riviera – may be more your style. From the yachts at the Bay of Billionaires to the high rollers at Monte Carlo’s Casino Square, the stylish French Riviera offers a thrilling glimpse into the decadent “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”. This area is full of glamorous resorts where you can sun and shop alongside the well-heeled locals and European tourists. Most visitors to the Côte d’Azur make a stop in Cannes, the chic city of festivals, fireworks and film stars, to browse the shops, stroll the beaches and enjoy the famous Croisette Boulevard. Yet there is a lot more to discover here, from the fortified walls of Old Antibes and the colorful flower market in Nice to the cliffside medieval village of Eze, with its traditional perfumery. Explore Well Arranged Travel’s customizable day trips to the French Riviera here.

SPOTLIGHT ON ITALY: Well Arranged Travel’s “Three-in-One” Tour

Anyone with wanderlust for Italy will know of Tuscany, but how about Umbria and Liguria? Well Arranged Travel has a tour that allows you to sample the best of these three fantastic regions. Read on to learn about three unique places you will experience along the way.

• Travelling Tuscany’s backroads, you will visit the Romanesque Abbey of Sant'Antimo, an unforgettable 13th-century Benedictine monastery. This simple yet magnificent stone church boasts an extraordinarily beautiful backdrop of olive groves, vineyards, and wild forest. You’ll have a chance to hear the monks, clad in their white robes, chant their prayers in Latin at the altar.

• Take home a piece of the colorful, elegant pottery handmade in Gubbio, one of Umbria’s most picturesque and charming cities. Gubbio’s tradition of ceramic-making dates back to 1498, when Mastro Giorgio settled here, developing the “lustre” technique (crushed metals being the key to its brilliance) that is still used by Gubbio’s artisans today. Mastro Giorgio’s plates are considered among the “household masterpieces” of Italian Renaissance art.

• No one can escape the spell of the enchanting villages of the Cinque Terre (Italian for Five Lands), sprinkled along Liguria’s rocky coast of the Tyrrenian Sea: olive groves, vineyards, winding stone paths and enchanting small beaches wedged between cliffs, fishing villages and colorful rooftops. Your tour of the Cinque Terre ends with a walk along a beautiful footpath called La Via dell'Amore (“the Lovers' Pathway”) connecting two of the villages.

This is a small taste of the many incredible places we visit on our eleven-day tour zig-zagging the Italian countryside. Click here to read more and reserve your spot today!

FOR INDEPENDENT TRAVELERS:

As a tour operator serving both travel professionals and independent travelers, Well Arranged Travel offers a wide range of services to help travelers plan their journeys and complement their itineraries. We can organize everything from private transportation to shore excursions and guided day tours, be it a nighttime cruise on the Seine, a hike on Mt. Etna, a Parisian cooking class, or a visit to a family farm and vineyard, Look for this space in the next newsletter to learn more about some of our special day trips, or click here to learn about our services for travelers striking out on their own. You can also find a list of our private day tours here

Let us know if you have any special needs or ways we can make your journey complete!

A WORD FROM OUR TRAVELERS:

I cannot thank you enough for the wonderful tour you arranged for my daughter, grandson and me from Rome to Pompeii and Herculaneum. It was a pleasure to meet both our driver, Paolo Di Gangi and our tour guide, Antonio Pessaro.

Paolo is not only an excellent driver, but his car was absolutely immaculate. He was very informative about the countryside and the history of the area on our way south.
Antonio, whom we met in Pompeii must be the absolutely best guide in existence. His English (as well as Paolo's) is excellent, his knowledge of these two ancient cities is truly amazing. The hours just flew by as we were literally transported into the first century.
As a special treat Paolo showed us Naples by night on our way back to Rome, which was a wonderful ending to a most special day.

Thank you again for arranging a most perfect day for us; it was the highlight of our trip to Italy.

-- Ruth Brimmekamp, Private Day Tour, Pompeii and Herculaneum, 2009


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