hmmmmmm. Well, if people are considering a Southern France / Northern Spain combo tour, I just might be VERY interested.
CR of France is the next tour that I'm planning on doing but not until 2010. Mind you, I was going to stay home this year but the BB members tour was to good to pass up.
I'll be watching this forum with much interest, to see what eventuates.

Phil (and others)

You said...
"Having carefully read through all the details of the 2008 BB members’ tour, I have tried to discern what made that itinerary attractive enough for almost 30 people to book that tour, rather than something else from Insight's brochure."

I do not care about which BB tour gets the most votes. I choose what I prefer, not what BB tour gets the most votes. The one that gets the most votes may not be the best tour offered. Everyone has their own vote in my opinion.


You said...
"...Back in early 2007, Insight put the following tour suggestions to a vote:

- Vineyards and Wine Festivals of France [9 votes]
- The Romantic Roads and Alpine Wonderland of Germany [28 votes]
- Treasures of Portugal, the Algarve and Southern Spain [13 votes]
- Sicily and Malta in depth (this is now a regular tour) [9 votes]
- Other (to be decided) [5 votes]..."

Well, the offered BB tour selections were decent. The tour that was selected was a "no-brainer" selection in my opinion.

Plus, they threw in key catch-words such as romantic and alpine, etc.

I did not go on the BB tour, did you?

Cat's

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Cat's Inheritance,

Cat's,

quote:

I do not care about which BB tour gets the most votes. I choose what I prefer, not what BB tour gets the most votes. The one that gets the most votes may not be the best tour offered. Everyone has their own vote in my opinion.

What you say is absolutely right. However, I believe you are missing my point: I only mentioned the voting to describe the process by which BB members finally came to a decision on selecting a tour to be the BB Members tour for 2008. I actually voted for the option: "Other (to be decided)" because without having researched the "Romantic Roads and Alpine Wonderland of Germany" tour, it seemed to have too many overlaps with the "CR of Bavaria, Switzerland & Austria" tour which we did in 2004. Later on, I researched the proposed BB Tour (see: Amended Itinerary and Some BB Tour Data) and I changed my mind about the tour.

quote:

I did not go on the BB tour, did you?

In fact, my Travel Agent reserved two places on the BB Tour from the time she booked my wife's two other tours in 2007 until late January this year. During that time, my Travel Agent corresponded with Insight on my ability to undertake the tour, given my mobility limitations and the steps and cobbled streets of old Europe. The advice we received was that many parts of the tour would be a somewhat difficult tour for me to handle so we cancelled.

The overall point I am trying to make is that intending travellers have a huge variety of tour choices available within the Insight brochures, together with a great many more if they look at other companys' offerings. Attracting people to select a special BB Members tour is a very difficult task. In my view, a BB Members Tour needs to be quite different to what is normally available. Choosing the time of year for the BB Tour and tour duration are also quite difficult.

phil

When we came home from our two Insight tours in 2006 we said no more tours to Europe. When we came home from our 2 tours this year, (including the BB tour)we said no more Europe tours.

Now I see mention of a Southern France/Northern Spain tour - and - well, I'm with you Pauline - Garth & I would be very interested in that tour in 2010. Couldn't do it before with what the stock market is doing at present.

I especially like the idea of the food & wine part of the tour. Phil told me once that the Country Roads of France was an excellent tour. I imagine this tour would have at least some similarities.

Mind you, we would also love a Food & Wine tour of Italy, especially one that visited festivals in smaller villages, such as one that celebrates the olive harvest for instance. Food, wine & our favourite country. Sounds good to me.

Tuffet

A food and wine tour would be incredible. Do you know that every small region of France has a dish that is specific to their region. I stayed in country farms in the Dordogne and they made their own home made wine and goat cheese, both delicious !

In the Dordogne they also have many grottos, one of the most famous is the Padirac grotto, where you go on a small boat through the caves. This is spectacular and should definitely be included.

quote:

Originally posted by Tuffet42:
Now I see mention of a Southern France/Northern Spain tour - and - well, I'm with you Pauline - Garth & I would be very interested in that tour in 2010. Couldn't do it before with what the stock market is doing at present.
Mind you, we would also love a Food & Wine tour of Italy, especially one that visited festivals in smaller villages, such as one that celebrates the olive harvest for instance. Food, wine & our favourite country. Sounds good to me.
Tuffet

Hi Tuffet, as much as I love Italy, (been there twice) I'm still wanting to explore areas/cities that I haven't been to before.

Sounds good to me. I'm very interested. I've never been to Spain at all, and the only part of France I've been to is Paris, with a day trip to Monet's house.

I've never been to Spain (isn't there a song in that somewhere?) so anywhere in Spain would be of interest to me. I've done Country Roads of France and loved it! I would love to spend some time in northern France (and additional time in Colmar and Strasbourg - we just got a soupçon of those places on this year's BB tour). Like Pauline, I'm interested in visiting new places - I don't mind a bit of overlap (some time in Paris would be magnifique ) but given today's world financial situation, I want to make my travel $ go further and work on my "to do" list.

T

I've been giving this a lot of thought as before we travelled earlier this year we were fortunate to meet a fellow traveller on these boards. Finally meeting up with them in Athens and being a small part of their holiday was one of the highlights of our trip. That makes the thought of doing what our fellow BB's did just last month a very desirable option but there is always a catch. After a short trip to Jordan and then primarily spending all our travelling time on a boat in Egypt we found out that we were not really "bus touring" people during our Greece trip.

I realise that an integral part of touring is bus travel but 4-6+ hours a day was just too much for us. The Greece trip was only short but we were never so glad to be back in Athens to board our boat. After reading about Insight's "easy" tours I think that style of touring is something I'd vote for. The early suggestions of Spain, France and southern England are all appealing but only if we spend more than 1-2 nights in a town/city. If the tour was designed to be slow and easy with plenty of time to see and experience the area then you'd get our vote for a 2010 trip.... BUT if it's going to be one of those "It's Monday we must be in Switzerland" trips then I guess we'll just have to read about it on these boards.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: OzJohnno,

Well I have been thinking where I would like to go. I thought it would be nice to go some where different as I have done all what others have suggested.This is what I have come up with. We can call it The Balkans.

Istanbul, Burgas (Bulgaria), Bucharest, Brastov, Cluj( Romania) Belgrade( Serbia) Sarajevo (Bosnia) Sofia (Bulgaria) Istanbul. Have mainly all 2 night stays.

Tupps

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