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Canadian Battlefields tour (France, Belgium & the Netherlands) EF Educational Tours

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I am an American but I went on an EF Tour with a group of Canadians to visit WWI and WWII Canadian Battlefield sites in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. It was a wonderful, exciting trip that I would not hesitate to recommend to others. Our French tour director, (GM) and bus driver, Christian, were terrific to work with and proved to be patient and informative at every stop.

As we were an unusual EF group of almost all adults and only 3 “kids” under the age of 20, I’m sure that the daily schedule had to be bent a bit to accommodate our older participants. As a result, we had some great after supper experiences with smaller groups in the towns we were staying in as we had the flexibility to allow people to chose to come with us or stay in the hotel and rest. For example, we took a great walking tour while in Rouen and were able to kick back in the plaza, enjoy some sweet jazz and a glass of wine without feeling like we were being pushed to go somewhere else on the agenda.

Food/meals was probably the biggest single issue with the tour as we had a couple of men over 6′2″ who always left the table hungry. It became a running joke that we had to find a grocery nearby the hotel so that they could eat a second supper before retiring for the night! If we had been a group of students I don’t believe that this would have been such a problem. As I didn’t think this was the culinary tour of Europe I made do with the meals and snacked as I could. Breakfast was “continental” and as that’s what I usually eat I had no complaints.

Hotels became progressively nicer at each stop with our first hotel being an E-Tap, 2 star hotel, in Paris. We had bunk beds in this hotel and as I am above the age of 40 this was the first time in many, many years that I had had to navigate a ladder to bed. It was an adventure, but hey! It was IN PARIS for heaven’s sake! I would have been happy with crackers for supper and a couch to sleep on, as long as I knew I was seeing Notre Dame in the morning! Each hotel after that got better and in the end, in Amsterdam, we were up to 4 stars! Terrific!

The EF brochure very plainly states that you will be walking a great deal and I found that to be true! I was exhausted every night, but not surprised! By walking so much and being on the bus a great deal, too, we covered alot of ground and saw an amazing number of battlefield sites. I don’t really know how we could have put another stop on the itinerary. I found the information I received from EF to be very truthful and honest in how strenuous the journey was going to be.

The flights were an adventure, it is almost every time I fly somewhere. I received the full body massage/security check in Zurich both coming and going, but perhaps this will stop a terrorist somewhere down the line, I need to learn to wear less jewelry. I have travelled enough domestically that I know you make your own luck in an airport. Relax and people watch while you wait. At least Air Swiss gives you free wine.

I’m sure that there are some EF tours that are terrible, as you would expect with any company of this size, but I would recommend this tour to anyone as a fabulous mix of battlefield history and local general history and experiences. The TD helped us make the most out of each stop and was very informative and resourceful. For the most part I believe you make your own happiness when it comes to travel. Flexibility is a must but I found this tour to be incredibly educational and entertaining.

Read your brochure! I found that it wasn’t very far off base with what I saw in Europe and experienced with the company.

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