Best Europe Group Tour — 16-Day Grand Europe Odyssey

A half-day orientation tour by coach covers the Swaminarayan Mandir at Neasden, Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus, with photo halts throughout. In the afternoon, ride the London Eye for a slow turn 135 metres over the Thames, then meet the waxworks at Madame Tussauds on Marylebone Road.

Check out after breakfast and transfer to the Eurostar terminal. The train runs beneath the English Channel and reaches Paris in a little over two hours — city centre to city centre, with none of the airport queueing. Check in at the hotel and take dinner at an Indian restaurant.

Spend the day at Disneyland Paris on the optional one-day one-park ticket — the castle, the parades and the rides at Marne-la-Vallée — or stay in the city for a slower day of galleries, cafés and boulevard shopping. Whichever you choose, the group reconvenes around 6:00 PM and travels together to dinner.

A guided city tour takes in the Place de la Concorde, the gilded Pont Alexandre III, the dome of Les Invalides over Napoleon's tomb, the Arc de Triomphe and the length of the Champs-Élysées. In the afternoon, ride the lift to the second level of the Eiffel Tower, 115 metres above the Champ de Mars, then board an open-deck cruise along the Seine past Notre-Dame, the Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay.

Check out and cross into Belgium. In Brussels, walk the Grand Place — a guildhall square long held to be one of the most beautiful in Europe — see the medieval Town Hall and the small bronze Manneken Pis, and drive past the Brabantine Gothic cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula. A photo halt at the Atomium, the nine-sphere iron crystal built for the 1958 World's Fair, closes the visit before the coach continues to Amsterdam.

In season, spend the morning at the Keukenhof bulb gardens at Lisse, where millions of tulips, hyacinths and daffodils are planted each year. Outside the flowering window the group visits Zaanse Schans instead — working windmills on the Zaan, a cheese farm and a clog-making workshop. The afternoon is an Amsterdam city tour taking in Dam Square, the Royal Palace and the Nieuwe Kerk, closing with a glass-roof cruise through the UNESCO-listed canal ring.

Leave the Netherlands and cross into Germany. At Cologne the Kölner Dom rises 157 metres over the Rhine — a High Gothic masterpiece and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, six centuries in the building. After time at the cathedral square, follow the river south to Frankfurt for the night.

Leave Frankfurt and drive south into the Black Forest — dense evergreen woodland, spa villages and the workshops that gave the world the cuckoo clock. Cross into Switzerland at Schaffhausen for the Rhine Falls, the largest waterfall in Europe by volume, with a short boat ride out to the central rock, then continue to Zurich for a three-night Alpine base.

Travel through dramatic Alpine valleys to the mountain village of Grindelwald, beneath the north face of the Eiger. Browse the chalets and Swiss shops, or take the optional cogwheel ascent to Jungfraujoch, the Top of Europe at 11,333 feet, for the Ice Palace and the Sphinx observation deck. Transfer to Interlaken around 4:30 PM to walk the Höheweg and visit the Yash Raj monument before returning to Zurich.

Ascend Mt. Titlis to 10,000 feet aboard the Titlis RotAir, the world's first revolving cable car. At the summit, ride the Ice Flyer chairlift across the glacier crevasses and cross Europe's highest suspension bridge on the Cliff Walk, then take a buffet lunch on the mountain. Descend for an orientation tour of Lucerne — the Lion Monument, the covered Chapel Bridge and time for Swiss watch shopping — before returning to Zurich.

Drive east to Vaduz, capital of the Principality of Liechtenstein — Europe's fourth-smallest country — and take the city tram through the historic quarter beneath the prince's castle. Cross into Austria for the Swarovski Crystal Worlds store at Wattens, then continue to Innsbruck to see the Golden Roof, the gilded oriel Maximilian I built over the Altstadt, and the medieval lanes around it.

Cross the Brenner Pass into Italy and reach the Tronchetto pier at Venice. A vaporetto water bus carries the group across the lagoon to St. Mark's Square, and a walking tour follows: the basilica facade and its campanile, the Doge's Palace, and the enclosed limestone Bridge of Sighs. A gondola through the inner canals is available as an option. Overnight is on the mainland at Padua.

Travel south into Tuscany to Pisa, where the open-sided toy train runs an orientation circuit to the Piazza dei Miracoli — the cathedral, the round baptistery and the Leaning Tower, seen from the square. Continue to the Piazzale Michelangelo for the classic panorama over the Arno and the Duomo of Florence, then on to the Tuscan countryside at Arezzo for the night.

Travel to Rome and cross into Vatican City, the smallest sovereign state in the world, for St. Peter's Basilica and the papal art collections. The afternoon is a panoramic drive through the ancient city with photo halts along the Tiber, at the Roman Forum, the Circus Maximus, the Piazza Venezia, the Trevi Fountain and the Colosseum.

Take breakfast, check out, and board the scheduled group transfer to Rome Fiumicino Airport (FCO) departing at 10:00 AM. Your tour ends here.