The Senior

Great Trains of Europe Tours: Time to get back on the Tracks

Great Trains of Europe Tours: Time to get back on the Tracks
Great Trains of Europe Tours: Time to get back on the Tracks

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With the world opening up again, it's time to dust off the old passport and start planning your next holiday.

"This time, why not avoid the whistle-stop coach tours and, instead, enjoy Europe from your reserved First Class seat on one of Europe's great trains?" asks Toowoomba local, Mr Stan Klan, company principal of Great Trains of Europe Tours.

Stan began his love affair with the great trains of Europe while taking his students to Europe during his years as a history teacher in Melbourne and Queensland. Stan moved from the classroom to the railway tracks, and commenced his own family-operated boutique rail tour company, Great Trains of Europe Tours.

"Our small tour groups - 25 travellers maximum - all stay in First Class hotels, with three or four nights at each stop, giving you time to unpack and become a local. There are no luggage hassles: it is sent on ahead from hotel to hotel while you ride Europe's great trains in reserved First Class seats," Stan said.

"And you are guaranteed a level of quality control that few companies can match, as I accompany each departure as Tour Director. This explains why there are only five or six tours a year," he added.

Itineraries are selected to include the most breathtaking scenery, the quaintest hill villages and the most magical cities, on trains ranging from the Glacier Express (pictured) winding through snow covered Alpine passes, to the sleekest Inter City trains reaching 320 kilometres an hour.

The 2022 - 23 season starts with the Pre-Christmas Magic Tour departing on November 30th, and visiting the Christmas Markets of Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, Prague, Leipzig and Berlin with a classical music concert or opera at each stop. Solo travellers enjoy a single room without a single supplement.

The ever popular Winter Wonderland Tour - Swiss and Austrian Alps with Paris for New Year's Eve, Venice and Prague - departs on December 28th.

With either of these winter tours you have the option of an Add-on White Christmas Week in a beautiful village in the Swiss Alps (kids or grandkids stay free).

2023 offers a rail tour Chasing the Northern Lights, through Scandinavia, with an optional Iceland Add-on, followed by an exploration of the civilisations on both sides of the Straits of Gibraltar on our Morocco and South of Spain Tour.

The annual Springtime Gardens Tour of Holland, France and rural England, culminating in the Chelsea Flower Show, operates again in May.

High summer will the Swiss Mountain Rails Tour on the Glacier Express (pictured) and other tiny Swiss "name trains"; while autumn brings the Silk Road Tour by private train, through the 'Stans to the walls of Constantinople.

Strictly limited seats remain on September and October 2022 tours incorporating a performance of the once-a-decade Oberammergau Passion Play in Germany.

Please call your Tour Director Stan on 0488-423-848 for a colour brochure, google Great Trains of Europe Tours or visit www.greattrainsofeurope.com.au

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