| Picture: Image Bank |
So you think coach touring holidays are all about old folk
and fighting for legroom? Sounds like you’re a few years
behind the times. There are still grand and classic tours that
whisk passengers around Europe’s famous cities and towns, but
coach clients have become an adventurous lot, encouraging operators
to scan the world for exciting new itineraries.
These days coach clients can sweat it out in the jungles of South
America, explore the Australian rainforests and crawl through the
Viet Cong tunnels in Vietnam. There are tours of China and US
cities, and even island-hopping in Greece, which is more cruise
than coach. With such a bewildering choice Travel Weekly has
scoured the brochures and come up with five suggestions to help
match customers to the right itineraries.
| 1. Best for first-timers |
Where? Russia.
Why? Coach holiday virgins should either choose a
short break or an itinerary with a good balance of sightseeing by
coach and other means so if they really don’t like the coach,
the holiday is not spoilt. Holidays to Russia combining Moscow and
St Petersburg not only include city highlights tours, but also
offer free time and there’s a rail transfer between the two
centres.
The alternative: the other option is a short-break
coach holiday. There are lots of three and five-night breaks that
hop over the Channel to places such as Bruges, Amsterdam and Paris,
and are a good taster of what you can expect.
Sample product: Insight Vacations offers an
eight-day Easy Pace Russia tour combining Moscow and St Petersburg.
It starts at £725 per person bed and breakfast including
sightseeing and rail travel between the cities. Flights are
extra.
| 2. Best for history |
Where? World War battlefields.
Why? The 60th anniversary of the end of World War
II this year has increased interest in the battlefields. Tours take
passengers to the landing beaches, scenes of key battles in World
War I and II such as the bridge at Arnhem, Passchendaele and the
Somme, and the cemeteries where rows of gravestones bring home the
enormity of it all.
The alternative: Berlin, Vienna and Prague, three
cities guaranteed to send a thrill down the spine of any budding
historian. See Checkpoint Charlie, the bloodstained uniform of the
Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand, whose assassination triggered the
events leading to World War I, and the city violated when Soviet
tanks rolled in to end the Prague Spring in 1968.
Sample product: Leger Holidays offers a five-day
Arnhem and the Rhine Crossings tour from £279 per person bed
and breakfast travelling in August including return ferry crossing,
two evening meals, excursions and a dedicated specialist
battlefields guide.
| 3. Best for food and wine |
Where? France.
Why? French cuisine is second to none once you get
away from the ubiquitous omelettes and moules frites. Taste foie
gras as it should be, see how many ways duck can be served or try a
simple salad paysanne. There are several wine tours, but devout
foodies should book Trafalgar’s Taste of France itinerary,
which includes a cookery lesson and a visit to a Provençal
market to buy local specialities that are then used to prepare
lunch.
The alternative: Contiki has a fun seven-night
tour of Tuscany that includes a Chianti wine tasting and a trip
into the countryside to find produce for an evening cookery
lesson.
Sample product: Trafalgar’s 10-day Taste of
France, travelling from Paris to Nice, costs £980 per person
bed and breakfast. This includes two speciality restaurant lunches,
two three-course dinners and two speciality dinners and
sightseeing, but excludes flights.
| 4. Best for scenery |
Where? Arizona and Utah.
Why? There is nothing quite like the desert to
take your breath away, and as this is the US the scenery is on a
grand scale. Arizona is the home of the Grand Canyon and the
incredible orange and red rock formation – called Hoodoos
– in Bryce Canyon National Park, hewn out of the rock over
centuries by the wind and rain. Wallace Arnold has a tour of the
area that includes a visit to Monument Valley, the white sandstone
cliffs in Zion National Park and ends in Las Vegas.
The alternative: take your pick from the
picture-postcard lakes and mountains of Austria and Italy, the
dramatic coastline of the Neapolitan Riviera, or Norway, where
stunning scenery goes with the territory.
Sample product: Wallace Arnold’s 10-day
Canyon Country, Arizona and Utah tour costs from £1,589 per
person bed and breakfast departing November 3 2005 and March 23
2006. It includes flights, five evening meals, transfers and
sightseeing.
| 5. For something different |
Where? China.
Why? China might be opening up to visitors, but it
is hardly a mass-market destination. The country was added to this
year’s second-edition Cosmos Tourama Europe and Beyond
brochure and demand is huge. Coach tours enable clients to take in
many of the destination’s unique sights. Highlights of the
Cosmos tour include Beijing, Shanghai, the Summer Palace, the Great
Wall and Ming Tombs, the Terracotta warriors, and a four-night
Yangtze river cruise.
The alternative: check out Trafalgar’s
exotic South America tours. Best of Brazil and the Amazon visits
top sights and throws in night-time alligator watching and piranha
fishing.
Sample product: Cosmos has a new 15-night Wonders
of China and the Mighty Yangtze tour from £1,479 per person
full-board including international and internal flights, a river
cruise and all sightseeing trips.
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