Giverny - the gardens and home of Claude Monet, France’s most famous Impressionist painter. The location inspired the masterworks that altered the entire landscape of modern art. En route to Giverny we will drive through Vétheuil, a charming village where Monet lived with his first wife and where she is buried. At Giverny, you will see Monet’s famous water garden featuring his water lilies and Japanese bridge; his house and studio; and the innumerable varieties of ornamental plants in the ever-changing gardens.

Vaux-le-Vicomte - The Chateau that inspired the construction of Versailles, it was designed by the same architect, artists and landscape gardener who later built the King's magnificent palace. The owner of the chateau was thrown in jail for the simple offense of building a chateau that was more elegant than the King's own residence. Possibly the most uniquely elegant example of pre-Versailles opulence, Vaux is convienently and easily accessable within an hour's drive of Paris.

Auvers-Sur-Oise - This charming village on the Oise river attracted the romantic painters as well as Cézanne and Van Gogh, who is buried in the cemetery there next to his loyal brother, Theo. On the way you will drive through Pontoise, where Pisarro lived and painted and can stop and see the museum there. Auvers will give you a fascinating glimpse into the world of nineteenth-century painters. You can visit the church that Van Gogh painted, see the home of Dr. Gachet, whose portrait by Van Gogh became one of the tragic painters most famous works, visit the room where Van Gogh died, the scenes he and Cézanne painted, the studio of the teacher and painter Daubigny’s, and tour the chateau in a remarkable voyage through time.

The Chateau of Fountainebleau was a royal residence for 300 years. Expanded in the renaissance by King Francis I, and designed by Italian artists who had studied under Michealangelo. It was the scene of Napoleon Bonaparte's abdication, as well as many splendid royal ceremonies. 38 miles southeast of Paris, on the edge of a favored royal hunting forest (62,000 acres) you can combine a tour of the palace with a visit to Barbizon, favored by artists in the 19th century. It is also possible to combine with a tour to Vaux-le-Vicompte.

Provins - a medieval village that retains the spirit of the past. Each year, a medieval festival brings the old city ramparts to life with period actors in full costume, vendors, and people like us who just like sauntering around.

La Roche-Guyon- First constructed in the 1100s and sumptuously enlarged in the eighteenth, the chateau was the headquarters of German Marshall Erwin Rommel during the Battle of Normandy in the twentieth. A visit to the three levels of the chateau, home of the La Rochefoucauld family, will introduce you to fascinating personalities from each of these centuries. Their stories reflect the drama of individual lives in some of the most traumatic of history’s events.