La Belle France

Great itinerary, excellent tour guide (Albert) and the best driver (Ken). Small towns of great interest, enjoyable excursions and plenty of time to do your own thing. Accommodation acceptable, not luxurious but always well located and close to restaurants. Small group works well although a full bus made things cosy. Fortunately no long journeys.

The places we visited, and the tour leader and driver were a standout! One of the best BRT tours we have ever done.

This was our first tour with Backroads and it certainly won’t be the last! During the whole 10 days, we drive on the freeway once or twice - the rest of the time we wandered through beautiful little villages in the French countryside. With a maximum of 20 people, we quickly developed great relationships with everyone and had a number of wonderful dinners and drinks. We arrived at our hotel each night about 4:00pm which gave us lots of time to explore on our own or just find a table in the town square and enjoy a pre dinner drink or two. The itinerary was fabulous and we had lots of time at each of the sites. Could not recommend more highly.

The tour lived up to its description in the Back Roads brochure. Our guide was very experienced, knowledgeable and personable and was able to add stops to the trip to satisfy the requests of some tour members. The hotels were all well located, interesting and a memorable part of the experience. The days were full of activity without us feeling too rushed. A minor negative was that the tour bus, a Mecedes Sprinter, felt a little cramped for the 15 of us on the tour, especially on the longer drives.

Have done seven tours with BackRoads. Apart from the bus, which was not up to the standard of those in the UK, the tour met your usual standard. Both the tour guide and driver were stand out exceptional. The accommodation gave an excellent vibe in that it was quintessentially French. Have recommended BackRoads for consistency of product and feel pricing fair.

I have always wanted to go to France.The tour fulfilled all my expectations. I saw so much of the countryside, and Tthe Chateaux and Gardens were delightful.
The tour guide, Charlie Jaques, was marvellous in every way; caring, competent, knowledgeable and entertaining. I couldn't imagine anyone better.

The Itinerary and accommodation was excellent. Daily water on the bus would
have been greatly appreciated. Charlie our Tour Guide made a good trip into a
Brilliant Trip his Knowledge Expertise and Sense of Humor certainly was greatly
appreciated. Alex our Driver BRILLIANT also an absolute Gentleman.
Wonderful Like Minded group of people to travel with all in all a Fantastic Trip .

I’ve already submitted a review to Backroads

I’ve already done a review with Backroads

I loved the whole tour, however the hotel in Paris was not very nice.
We had 2 days of rain and the bus could have supplied umbrellas as I don’t travel with them.
Apart from that the rest of the tour and the guide and driver were absolutely great.

Driver and tour guide worked well together to give all on board a fabulous insight into the French way of life, and thè stunning history that it is based on.
Dreamy castles, churches and gardens make this experience unforgettable.

So happy I chose to do this la Belle tour we certainly did amazing back roads through beautiful towns & lush country views. We had a great group of 13 and all got along so well.
Our driver Ken & tour leader Trudo were exceptional.
There was a lot of different pavements to manage & lots of stairs, lifts were very rare so would consider this if you were not very fit.
Looking forward to book another Back Roads tour.

Excellent tour, fabulous guide and driver, the small backroads of the countryside are amazing but there was more walking and steps then I anticipated but I managed very well but some other people did not .

Our guide Lynne was fabulous. As an historian, she was able to give us a fascinating overview of the stories behind the places we passed, visited and stayed. As someone passionate about France and French culture, she could recommend places to visit and dine, and was very happy to accompany us when discovering new places and to join us for dinner, therefore further enriching our knowledge and understanding of an area. The bus was roomy enough given it wasn’t full and the destinations were well selected. All accommodation was very good, and most were excellent. It was a fabulous experience all round. Thank you.

A wonderful tour. Enjoyed every place we went to. My highlight being Monet’s Garden Our tour quite Lynne was exceptional. She was fluent in French which helped in so many ways. Her knowledge of France history is unbelievable.
The hotels we stayed at were great as were the breakfasts at these places.

The fellow passengers have now all become friends.

One of the best tours we have been on.

La Belle France itinerary covers such a variety of places and activities. The small size of the group allowed us to move around without being in a crowd. Our knowledgeable, friendly guide and expert driver took the stress out of travel.

I thoroughly enjoyed my tour of France, this was my second Backroads tour having been on the Italian Indulgence tour some years ago. Truda was an amazing guide and clearly knew her subject. She also went out of her way to help everyone on the tour and make us all feel at ease.
Dennis was an excellent driver, but the bus we travelled in was far from excellent.
No leg room at all, not enough room in the baggage compartment so bags had to be carried in the back of the bus, which from a safety point was not good.
Apart from the accommodation in Paris at the BW Ronceray Opera, the hotels we stayed went from good to very good. I stayed one more night, post tour, at the BW Ronceray Opera, and it would be the worst room I have stayed in for a very long time. It was too small and dark, had nowhere to put my suitcase with any degree of comfort, the only power outlet I could reach was on the floor by the bathroom and the bathroom itself had writing on the wall by the toilet.

Transit Van we travelled in was sub standard and not luxury as advertised . We were crammed, no leg room, also limited vision and no Wi-Fi available . Not at all comfortable and definitely would not do another Back Road Tour unless guaranteed suitable transport . Accommodation was good overall , two hotels did not meet a good standard . Truda our tour leader was excellent and was very tentative and informative. The itinerary was very good .

This was a fabulous trip and will certainly recommend to others! The Driver and Tour guide were excellent and don’t think they could improve. Always good for a laugh, happy to be part of the group but maintained their professionalism!

Tour was well paced, interesting and our guide, Charlie was top shelf. He treated everyone with respect and he related well to all personality types and addressed minor concerns in a very diplomatic way. He was extremely conscious of toilet stops for the travellers which is so important to many of us.

Could not fault the trip at all, above expactations

See above. Highly recommended.

Too rushed at times, would have liked more time in sites pertaining to Normandy Landings.

Interesting places visited

A very professionally and efficiently run organisation by extremely friendly people.

Extremely well looked after

Excellent guides and choices of places to go.

This tour includes several chateaux. While interesting, these were often crowded with queues - Monet’s house and Mont St Michel in particular. This detracted from the experience so perhaps some tweaking of the timing for these visits to escape crowds would help.
The Normandy beaches were a highlight and more time would have been good at Omaha Beach memorial.

Visit to cider farm and wine tasting were both underwhelming to me.. both took up precious time that could have been used for other activities.

A very well run tour . Tour guide Tony was a very colourful character and the driver made us feel very safe

Great itinerary. Wonderful sites.
Wonderful to explore the incredible towns of Normandy and Brittany.

Our guide did not speak French, so could not answer alot of questions and there was no real insight into the French way of life, culture, food, traditions etc. The destinations were great.

Went to good locations, stayed in interesting hotels and towns, drove on backroads.

The tour should have stopped at Roeuen Cathedral and less time in English battle ground areas. We were supposed to stop in Amboise on our last day, and never did. Everyone was in a hurry to just end the trip in Paris and go their separate ways.

Excellent tour. They took us to many high-level sites that would have been difficult to get to on our own. Wi-Fi was sketchy and the hotels were charming, but do not expect otherwise in the areas this tour goes to. Hotels were centralized for the most part and food and shopping were nearby. Highly recommend and would use this company again.

Ed had an excellent knowledge of history

Thought it was a little expensive

Exceeded expectations in regards to the places we visited and the local knowledge was well researched and interestu

We certainly went on some fabulous backroads and saw more in the smaller bus then a larger one.