"Our 13-day Beautiful Cities Tour to Berlin, Prague, Vienna and Bratislava was a great success with everyone returning home happy and healthy after what was an exciting and action-packed trip." - Steve Whysall, stevewhysall.net
Since 2011, Steve and his travel club explored the world together in 31 tours! Of these 31 tours, I've personally organized 28 of them, and my heart is full of pride and joy.
Knowing that after all these years, we're still delivering exceptional tours that Steve and Loraine's travel club resonate with, just fills my heart with so much pride and warmth!
It has been my absolute pleasure to help Steve organize his custom garden tours for the past 14 years. Together we work really hard to create unique experiences focusing on gardens and cultural experiences. As always, Truden Travel's access to incredible vendors ensures everything runs smoothly and meets everyone's standards, allowing me to deliver a flawless experience.
I have asked Steve for his thoughts on this tour, and he graciously wrote his account below, vibrantly describing the day-to-day of this magical itinerary that he and Loraine designed (thank you, Steve!):
It was our 31st tour and many of the people who came had travelled with us before. This made it feel like a reunion with everyone sharing stories of past adventures.
As well as seeing some fabulous gardens and visiting many historic sites, we were also treated on the Beautiful Cities Tour to classical music concerts, an energetic night at a top jazz club, and we visited many delightful and charming destinations in all four cities.
In Berlin, we kicked off with a walk along Unter den Linden to the Brandenburg Gate from where we also visited the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, and from there we went to Museum Island to view the Pergamon Panorama
Staying in the Mitte, Berlin’s historic core, gave us easy access to the Spree River and Nikolai old quarter of the city with all its charming shops and restaurants.
We visited Potsdam and the lovely Sanssouci Palace and also spent time exploring the vast Tiergarten, especially the beautiful rhododendron and rose gardens.
One morning, we traveled by tram to the delightful Charlottenburg Place on the outskirts and in the evening we celebrated with a fun evening at a traditional beer house near Alexanderplatz.
Everyone enjoyed seeing the East Side Gallery, the colourfully decorated remnant of the Berlin Wall, and we all fell in love with Ampelmann, the quirky red and green symbols on traffic signals. We were shown places from the dark Nazi area of Berlin’s past and we were able to see how the city has risen again from the shock and shame of that era to become the beautiful, vibrant, fun-loving city it is today.
From Berlin, we travelled in style on a luxury two level high-tech coach to Prague, stopping on route at the impressive city of Dresden, where we got to see first-hand the amazing restoration work in the city’s core around the city’s monumental Lutheran Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady).
In Prague, we settled into our hotel in the heart of the old town and explored the city, first visiting the historic castle and the famous Charles Bridge, Jewish Quarter and the city’s beautiful main square and into Wenceslas Square.
We visited two exquisite gardens, the Vrtba Garden and the Wallenstein Gardens as well as spent time at the John Lennon Peace Wall and the Kafka Museum. We also took time for a boat ride on the river and took a long look at the famous Dancing House designed by Frank Gehry.
It is impossible, of course, to visit Prague without hearing some classical music and we were treated to a fabulous concert - a program of 10 pieces - at the Mirror Chapel of Saint Salvatore in the centre of town. Another night, we went to the famous Reduta jazz club for a special tribute evening to the songs of Billie Holiday.
Leaving Prague was bitter-sweet because we had so much fun there. The shopping and the restaurant culture were a perpetual delight.
On our way to Vienna, we stopped for a tour of Lednice Castle with its extensive English garden landscape. We also found time for a wine tasting at the nearby Castle Valtice. The wine was very good and we ended up carrying a few bottles away to consume in Vienna.
Vienna is a beautiful, refined, elegant city with gorgeous architecture and a powerful assortment of attractions to amuse and entertain.
From our hotel, the Regina, on the Ring, we explored the city top to bottom, side to side, seeing all the old as well as new areas and getting a very good overview.
We visited St. Stephen’s Cathedral and areas where we found lovely schnitzel restaurants and chocolate shops as well as the Mozart House museum. We visited the Schonbrunn and had coffee and cake and took a horse and buggy ride and still had time to shop in the city and enjoy the myriad of bars and cafes.
For a day out, we travelled to Bratislava in Slovakia for a day, visiting the famous castle and town centre with all its cute stores and churches and restaurants and discovered how quickly progress was being made after the Communist era.
On the way home, we stopped at the Hundertwasser Village, a community designed by a visionary artist/architect who believed that in nature “there are no straight lines” so why make home boring and rectangular. This colourful community was entertaining and inspiring to see.
Back in Vienna, we spent our final day visiting art galleries and the rose garden and doing some wonderful shopping before we all gathered for a farewell dinner at Cafe Central, topped off by a relaxing music concert.
This was not our longest tour, but it was one packed with fun and information and we did not waste a second in exploring all that the cities had to offer.
To contact Steve by email swhysall@hotmail.com
Feedback from the guests:
“Thank you for creating the European Cities tour - it was a delight for all of the senses! As our last night was rather hectic, I did not get a quiet moment to thank you both for designing this wonderful tour. I enjoyed the itinerary and the individuals on the tour, and was able to spend time getting to know folks.
“Thank you for organizing yet another fun-filled tour. I consider myself so very fortunate to have had the good company of fellow travellers while experiencing the sights and culture of the beautiful cities we visited. Your tours are so life enhancing.”
“Thanks again for the adventures, laughs and wonderful experiences. It was amazing.”
“What a fabulous travel experience we had.”
For more pictures and Steve's day to day posts check out his blog.
Click to join Steve's next exciting garden tour to Ireland. We only have a few spots left and this is going to be another fabulous trip, trust me!
Check out my next trip to Sicily/Malta.
Curious about the past tours that Steve and I collaborated on, please visit Steve's website, to learn more!
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