Wonderful Paris and Normandy experience by Aline and Bastien!

France | Sep 2 - Sep 7, 2024

Aline and Bastien planned a wonderful trip for us to Paris and Normandy! This is our second trip utilizing KimKim and we find their model very good for our needs. I appreciated how accessible they were for questions on the What's App when we arrived and throughout our visit. We began trip by flying to Paris, then "trained" to Bayeux for several days in the French countryside visiting Mt. St. Michelle one day and then Normandy. The local tour guides they arranged for us were ALL terrific! Charles gave us a wonderful experience at Mt. St. Michelle and we appreciated all his shared knowledge, sense of humor and even his singing:-). Jonathan (Normandy) gave us a very enlightening and enjoyable D-Day experience despite the pouring rain! He was energetic and so fascinatingly full of history about this important place. Aline and Bastien had arranged lovely chateau accommodations near Bayeux that were so gorgeous and restful. Excellent restaurant and bar on site, even a sweet set of donkeys grazing peacefully in field. The staff at our chateau were all delightful! Our final day we returned to Paris by smooth, quiet train. We then packed two days worth of touring into one as our airline had canceled our flight at beginning of our trip (after we waited 7 hours through repeated delays in Boston). Thus, since we lost our first day in Paris, we strove to pack everything in on our last day. Remarkably it all worked! Trained 2.5 hrs early AM, brought bags to hotel near Notre Dame, walked to Louvre, toured there (Mona Lisa! I had just read The Davinci Code which begins in the Louvre and discusses some fascinating details about the Mona Lisa...as well as The Divine Feminine...) taxied to Montmartre where we enjoyed a Gastronomy tour with Aude, a delightful and very informative young lady tour guide sharing about the amazing delicacies and history of the area, taxied to Eiffel Tower to meet Anna for our graciously rescheduled tour from Monday She was remarkably prepared with much to share and good visual aids to emphasize our learning as we traveled up to the top and visited stops on way down. Fully enjoyed Anna and her thorough tour! We added our Siene commented cruise back on to close our touring which was very fun and finally had a late Italian meal back near our hotel. A comfortable sleep, a surprisingly efficient and delicious breakfast at cafe nearby and then the transfer service Bastien arranged arrived in timely manner to return us to Charles DeGaulle Airport. If only our air travel had gone more smoothly on both ends, but this was the airlines and not a KimKim responsibility. We look forward to arranging future travel with KimKim. Thank you again Aline and Bastien!