All the landmarks mentioned in this itinerary will be visited. Some changes may be made in the order they will be visited depending upon the weather.
Day 1: Departure from Newark Airport to Venice, Italy
Day 2: We arrive in Venice and a bus takes us to our hotel. The rest of the day is free to rest and walk around to get acquainted with the city.
Day 3: We walk to Piazza San Marco for a visit of the Basilica and its museum, the Clock Tower and the famous Bridge of Sighs. In the afternoon we will walk to Santa Zaccharia for a short visit and then to the spectacular church of Santa Maria della Salute where I will give you a lecture on the history of Venice. The evening is free.
Day 4: Morning lecture before we take a boat to the Fish Market and then to the Doge Palace. In the afternoon we visit the church of San Giorgio Maggiore before going up the bell-tower for a view of the city and neighboring islands. We return to the hotel by way of the Grand Canal and you will be able to appreciate the beauty of the many outstanding palaces and churches that line the canal. The evening is free.
Day 5: We start our day with a lecture followed by a walk to the Accademia (the Museum of Fine Arts), home of the most important collection of Venetian paintings. Afterwards you will have some free time and we will regroup in the afternoon to take a boat to the island of Murano, the largest of the islands that dot the Venice Lagoon. There we visit one of the many glass factories that have made Murano famous throughout the world since 1292. The rest of the day is free.
Day 6: We leave the city by train in the late morning on our way to Salzburg, Austria, where we arrive in the late afternoon in time for dinner.
Day 7: Morning lecture to discuss some highlights of the history of Salzburg. Then we start our tour of the city with a visit to the imposing Baroque cathedral and of the late medieval Hohensalzburg fortress. The location and the size of the fortress will amaze you. After a break for lunch, we go back to the center city to visit Mozart’s birthplace. The evening is free.
Day 8: Today we go for a visit of the famous salt mines that made Salzburg such an important city for centuries. The rest of the day is free.
Day 9: We leave Salzburg by train in the morning and arrive in Munich two hours later. It gives us time to get acquainted with the Old Town and its Neo-Gothic City Hall, its cathedral and its three remaining medieval gates. The evening is free.
Day 10: This morning we have a short lecture to introduce the visit of the day: the WWII concentration camp of Dachau, the first camp built by the Nazis. After the visit, we have some free time before going to the famous Hofbrauhaus (a huge beer hall) for dinner.
Day 11: We start the day with a lecture on and a visit of Nymphenburg Castle, summer residence of the Bavarian rulers and a wonderful example of German Baroque architecture. After lunch we go to Königsplatz where you find three remarkable buildings reproducing the three orders of Greek Classical architecture. The rest of the day is free.
Day 12: We take a short walk to 18th-century Asamkirche (Asam Church) which is probably the most amazing example of late baroque architecture that you will ever see. During the afternoon and evening you will be free to explore more at your leisure or do some shopping.
Day 13: We leave from Munich by train in the morning and arrive in Paris in the afternoon. There will be a lecture at one point during the day. After dinner, weather permitting, we will take a boat ride on the river to help you get acquainted with the City of Lights.
Day 14: In the morning we visit to the Cluny Museum of Medieval Arts, the Sainte-Chapelle, a medieval architectural masterpiece with its world-renowned stained glass windows, and the Conciergerie, a prison where Queen Marie-Antoinette spent the last days of her life. In the afternoon we go to the Louvre Museum. The museum is so immense that I will help you choose the sections you are most interested in. After the museum we go up the Arc de Triomphe to appreciate one of the most spectacular views of the city. The rest of the day is free for you to enjoy the city.
Day 15: We start the morning with a short lecture about the day’s activities. Our first visit takes us to the Pompidou Center, an amazing modernistic construction. After a break for lunch we visit the Orsay Museum, home of the largest collection of Impressionist paintings in the world: Monet, Renoir, Manet, Van Gogh, Cézanne, Sisley, Gauguin, Toulouse- Lautrec, they are all there for you to enjoy. The evening is free.
Day 16: Today is our last day in Paris. It is time to go to the Eiffel Tower. The rest of the afternoon is free before we regroup at the hotel to get ready for our train to Manheim where we board the night train to Berlin. We spend the night on the train in a couchette.
Day 17: We arrive in Berlin in the morning. After we refresh and rest a bit at the hotel we have a short lecture that will introduce you to the history of the city. Then we take a walk to Alexanderplatz, along Unter den Linden Avenue to the Berlin Cathedral, the State Opera House, the Old Museum, the Neue Wache and the Brandenburg Gate. Other visits for the day include the Holocaust Memorial and Potsdamer Platz, an area remarkably rich in modern architecture. We then proceed to Hitler’s former Reich Aviation Ministry building for an “appreciation” of Nazi architecture. We end the day with a short visit of Typography of Terror, a memorial which stands on the very place that used to be the headquarters of the Gestapo and which relates in a very moving way the horrors of that regime.
Day 18: Today the theme of our lecture is post-WWII Berlin, the Cold War, the division of Germany and the Wall. We walk along the East Side Gallery, the longest section of the Wall that has been preserved, before going on a visit of Checkpoint Charlie. In the afternoon we walk along Karl-Marx-Allee, through Strausbergerplatz, and onto Frankfurter Allee, an entire section of formerly East Berlin that epitomizes social-realist architecture.
Day 19: Our day starts with a lecture on Baroque architecture and then we proceed to Gendarmenmarkt, a Baroque area of Berlin with the German Church and the French Church. Our final walk takes us to the Spree River again for a look at the new glass architecture of the government buildings (Chancellery especially) and the new Lehrter Railways Station. In the afternoon, we take a couple of hours to visit the Pergamon Museum and the rest of the day is free.
Day 20: Another day in Berlin and another short lecture before we visit the Reichstag, seat of the German Parliament (Bundestag). The rest of the day is free. I will make suggestions for those who want to do more exploring and sightseeing.
Day 21: In the late morning cabs take us to the airport for the flight back to the U.S.
Note: The cities will be visited in the order and on the days mentioned on the schedule. Within the cities however the order and days of the visits for the sights mentioned may vary depending upon the weather or any other unexpected circumstances. Final decisions will be made on a day to day basis. Finally, Dr. Lalande will lecture and/or comment on all the landmarks mentioned.
