Small group travel with a personal, experienced guide is what European Focus is all about. Life is full of unexpected pleasures — the job of European Focus is to bring you to them! JAMES DERHEIM leads small groups in any country in Europe, Scandinavia or Great Britain. James is also known for his Family History […]
Dear Traveler, One of the greatest influences in my life was Guenter “Gus” Schuettler, photo chief of European Stars and Stripes. Gus was 9-years old when bombs fell on his native Kassel during World War II. He and his sister hid in their aunt’s basement as the earth shook. Gus’s first taste of chocolate was […]
My first night in Ireland is spent at The Courtyard B&B in the hamlet of Bunratty, an easy 15-minute drive from the Shannon Airport where I’ll greet new guests Margaret, Elisabeth and Jennifer on Sunday. The Courtyard has become like a second home since I first stayed here in 2000 while on a scouting mission […]
Today was quite a day. Productive, fun, informative and expensive. We had a meeting with an historian and family history expert in Karlsruhe, about an hour south of Heidelberg. We arrived in the leafy neighborhood and I parked the van in a well-marked zone near his house. About 90 minutes later, we emerged from a […]
The view from the Kloster Cafe in Beilstein, Mosel River Valley The Fox family came over for a tour including ancestral villages Hatten and Rittershofen in the Alsace, plus Allendorf and Niederlistingen in the state of Hessen, Germany. We also did some sightseeing “just for fun,” with stops in Bacharach on the Rhein, Rothenburg ob […]
One of the major stress points of travel is where to eat. There can be so many choices, it’s dizzying. What if you only have two nights in Florence? Ideally, those two nights should include some memorable dinners, right? With experience verging on four decades, European Focus Private Tours’ owner James Derheim can provide tips, […]
https://www.10best.com/interests/explore/10-ways-you-can-travel-and-explore-your-family-history/
One of the more than dozen ancestral villages visited by lifelong genealogist Caroline Gries was tiny Bechhofen, located in Middle Franconia, Germany. We were lucky to have a local historian, Hans-Rainer Preiss, standing by to help us understand more about the Jewish history of this place. This included a visit to the location of the […]