Spain Tours | European Focus

Archive for Spain Tours

Paris, Southwestern France and Barcelona Micro-Group Tour offer for 2013

By jim · Comments (0)

Friday, December 7th, 2012

PARIS, SOUTHWESTERN FRANCE & BARCELONA
Micro Group Tour for 2013

This trip starts off with three nights in one of the world’s most enchanting cities, with a guide who knows how to make the most of your time here. We then move away from the city to explore the environs o southwestern France. Carcassonne and the surrounding area is famous for many reasons. Carcassonne and the area also has a lot of mystery and history associated with the Knights Templar. We then make the drive to the one-and-only Barcelona, a city that has been at the crossroads of so much history – from Christopher Columbus connections , to the avant-garde Modernisme movement, with incredible architectural masterpieces by Gaudi (Sagrada Famiglia) and others. This city is really charming with much to see and do. We stay at a centrally-located, small boutique hotel. Trip price does not include airfare.

If there’s interest within the group there is much more to experience, including:
• Plenty of exposure to remnants from Gallo-Roman times
• Exploration of the area around Carcassonne, featuring more quaint and interesting villages, such as Mirepoix (unusual and pretty Middle Ages architecture with nice shops), as well as excursions to the countryside to see some of the castle and abbey ruins and other picturesque villages
• Possibility to enjoy an excursion of the Canal du Midi
• While in Barcelona, sightseeing, including Sagrada Famiglia and some other Gaudi buildings, monument of Christopher Columbus, and Las Ramblas

13 days starting from (depending upon number of people)
EURO 5,299

Package Offer includes:
• All meals and drinks (up to two glasses of wine per person or two beers with dinner)
• All lodging, transportation costs, fuel and tolls
• Tips and admission fees

Minimum number of guests required: Five
Maximum we are able to take: Ten
Tours offered in spring and in fall

Comments (0)

Tags : europe, european, family, florida, focus, group, in, of, private, sarasota, small, spain, to, tour, touring, tours

Tour Opportunities for October

By jim · Comments (0)

Sunday, March 4th, 2012

Walk along the Italian coastline in the mild month of October

March 5, 2012

European Focus founder and guide James Derheim is available during the beautiful month of October, a perfect time to explore most of central and southern Europe. October is prime season and is usually booked far in advance. The days are mild and the kids are all back in school with no major holidays, therefore, roads are much less crowded and the major sights (especially Germany after Oktoberfest) Contact European Focus today to get started on the planning for your exclusive holiday led by James Derheim.

Comments (0)

Categories : Austria Tours, Belgium Tours, Best Trattoria in Italy, Croatia Tours, England Tours, Europe Tours, France Tours, Germany Tours, Hungary Tours, Ireland Tours, Italy Tours, Poland Tours, Private Tours in Europe, Spain Tours

Northern Spain – Micro Group Tour

By jim · Comments (0)

Friday, March 2nd, 2012

Beautiful countryside in Portugal

NORTHERN SPAIN & PORTUGAL
Micro Group Tour for October (Max 5 adults)

We start with three nights in Segovia where we are positioned conveniently for several trips including Salamanca. The tour then moves up into the Léon y Castilla region, known for being part of the Camino de Compostela, as well as beautiful, rugged scenery and hilltop villages that show a connection to the Moorish past. We move on along to the famous pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela for a few nights to see what is considered one of Europe’s most beautiful city squares as well as the pilgrimage cathedral of St. James. Finally, we make the scenic drive down the coast into Portugal, where we’ll spend time in the northern part of the country, including Oporto and Braga. The trip ends with an overnight stay near Lisbon’s International Airport for your departure.

If there’s interest within the group there is much more to experience, including:
• Trying the Spanish and Portuguese specialty of “Leitdo Assado” or Roast Suckling Pig
• A visit to the palace of Felipe II’s, El Escorial (1563).
• Excursion to the Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen) and its huge Holy Cross monument built by General Franco as a memorial for the fallen in Spain’s civil war through the countryside
• Exploration of the impressive headlands of the Costa da Morta
• The spectacular landscape of Las Médulas resulted from the Ruina Montium, a Roman mining technique described by Pliny the Elder in 77 AD
• Port tasting and buying

13 days starting from (depending upon number of people)
EURO 4,999

Package Offer includes:
• All meals and drinks (up to two glasses of wine or beer per person
@ dinner)
• All lodging
• Transportation costs, fuel and tolls
• Tips
• Admission fees (excluding special requests such as bullfights)

Comments (0)

Categories : Europe Tours, Planned Tours, Spain Tours

Tags : europe, family, group, in, of, private, small, spain, to, tour, touring, tours

At the market hall off the Ramblas in Barcelona

By jim · Comments (0)

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

Comments (0)

Categories : Postcards from Europe, Spain Tours

Lunch on the way from Barcelona to Carcassonne

By jim · Comments (0)

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

Four time clients Art and Carol waterside at Begur, Spain

With help from a suggestion from a new friend who owns a B&B near Leon, we stopped in the delightful seaside town of Begur, Spain today where we found lunch at the wonderful hotel and restaurant “Galena,” located on the edge of the village but with a wonderful view of the rolling landscape to the west. We enjoyed a lazy drive up the coast until we turned inland for Carcasonne, our home for the next two nights on this Grand Adventure of Spain and (mostly) France.

The rooftops of Begur and the sea in the distance

Comments (0)

Categories : Spain Tours, Undiscovered Places

Tags : begur, spain

Barcelona’s Cathedral

By jim · Comments (0)

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

Soaring heights of the choir

The Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia (Catalan: Catedral de la Santa Creu i Santa Eulàlia, Spanish: Catedral de la Santa Cruz y Santa Eulalia), also known as Barcelona Cathedral, is the Gothic cathedral and seat of the Archbishop of Barcelona, Spain. The cathedral was constructed throughout the 13th to 15th centuries, with the principal work done in the 14th century.

The marble baptismal font was carved in 1433

The cathedral is dedicated to Eulalia of Barcelona, co-patron saint of Barcelona, a young virgin who, according to Catholic tradition, suffered martyrdom during Roman times in the city. One story says that she was exposed naked in the public square and a miraculous snowfall in mid-spring covered her nudity. The enraged Romans put her into a barrel with knives stuck into it and rolled it down a street (according to tradition, the one now called ‘Baixada de Santa Eulalia’). The body of Saint Eulalia is entombed in the cathedral’s crypt.

It was a belief in medieval times that if you took powder from a religious building and mixed it in with your grog or stew or whatever, that you would be cured of your ills or your demons or even an upset stomach from eating too much stone powder

Comments (0)

Categories : Spain Tours

Tags : barcelona cathedral

Columbus in Barcelona

By jim · Comments (0)

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

His finger measures an amazing 18 inches long.

Not only is there a huge statue of Christopher Columbus near the harborfront in Barcelona, but there is a small square near the former royal apartments that also has a connection with the famed explored and so-called discoverer of America. From the top of the huge bronze statue of Columbus, built in 1887-88 in time for the Barcelona Exposition (220,000 kilomgrams of bronze was melted down from old weapons for the column) but there is a quiet square near the cathedral in the Gothic quarter of Barcelona where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella greeted their explorer after his return from his first voyage to the New World in 1492. We wonder, did they ask him, “Did you bring us any interesting souvenirs?” Perhaps he answered, “Yes, my lady. I brought you a t-shirt saying, “I sailed around the world looking for a passage to India and all I came back with was this stupid t-shirt.”

Comments (0)

Categories : Spain Tours

Tags : columbus in barcelona

How Not to travel in Europe

By jim · Comments (0)

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

On the Ramblas in Barcelona, a mime makes a living dressed as Gaudi revived.

Our current guests make no apologies for being fans of popular author and television personality Rick Steves. Rick has made a career out of showing tourists “Europe through the Back Door.” Unfortunately, this usually means crappy hotels, tiny rooms, awful restaurants, indifferent service and all-around a waste of money and the total ruination of once “back door” places which are suddenly and overnight popular and inundated with mass tourism. Stories abound of villages and backwater hotels being mentioned just once in a Rick Steves guidebook and then, ten years later, being dropped from the same guidebook because the owners have become complacent, haven’t updated their rooms, serve a lousy breakfast and raise their prices into the stratosphere.

We love taking our guests to locals places, frequented by locals and not by tourists who hug their Rick Steves guidebooks like they're hugging the Bible

So when Art and Carol tell us about how they start their planning for a European trip with a Rick Steves book, it sort of makes us smile inside, because Art and Carol aren’t traveling on a Rick Steves tour bus. They’re traveling with European Focus Private Tours. That’s because tonight, when we took our guests to an authentic tapas bar near our boutique hotel, a place established in 1932 and serving locals ever since, we didn’t have to stand crammed toe to toe at a bar eating our tapas from toothpicks. We sat comfortably in a dining room full of interesting art, being served by Spanish-speaking waiters who didn’t give a damn if we were Americans. They served us the same way they served their Spanish and Catlunyan, and other guests – on their own terms – and slowly, and with care and with best of all, excellent food and wine, and we didn’t have to eat it with toothpicks. (a la Rick, as described in one of his own many ‘guides’.)

There’s a dividing line between traveling with the masses (Rick Steves) and experiencing Europe through the “Front Door” with European Focus. That line is usually measured in another zero added to the cost of the trip. But after hearing stories from Art and Carol of their previous misadventures on the road, we know and most importantly Art and Carol know, that the extra zero means a whole lot of something (memories) and a whole lot less of something else (stress).