Best of Rome and Paris Itinerary

Rome is all about the lens you use. Walk the same streets twice, and you will uncover something different depending on the lens you use. Today it is Caravaggio, with his artistry woven into the city’s mysteries. Start at Palazzo Barberini where Judith Beheading Holofernes is the first of the masterpieces entrenched in Italian art history. Continue on foot, through neighborhoods of enchantment to Santa Maria del Popolo, where The Martyrdom of Saint Peter stretches out before your eyes. Villa Borghese has a superb collection of lesser-known works, and it is a tour that takes you into Rome’s hidden places to give you a different take on some of the streets you will have walked yesterday.

Return to the hotel for before a tour of the Colosseum later in the afternoon. With special glasses on, you can stand in this world wonder and get an idea of how it changed through the ages. Remove the glasses, and you walk across the ancient floor, up some stairs and beyond the rope on the third tier for a chance to see parts of the Colosseum without crowds. This is Rome’s most iconic landmark, and with your private guide, you will separate myth and fiction as much of this wonder has been created by folklore. But while there may be amphitheaters and Roman structures around the world, none are on the scale and detail of this.

An old Fiat 500 will be your iconic vehicle to settle into the driving seat and head off, convoy-style, through the streets of Rome, the car becoming part of a fabulous riot of color and history. Stop in a neighborhood for coffee as you drive past legends from the past, and then grab some food at a market that overflows with fresh aromas. Your vehicle is small and nimble enough to navigate Rome’s old neighborhoods, and by traveling in a convoy, you will miss a lot of the traffic problems associated with Italy’s capital. Spend four hours driving and stopping at your leisure as you get to know the Eternal City and come to understand how it has built out around the heart of Empire. The rest of the day is free for some time on your own to experience every part of Rome.

Food is another wonderful lens from which to discover Rome, particularly the old neighborhood of Trastevere. Start in a beautiful market and go in search of the world’s finest artichokes, always found among other delicacies. Visit a bistro, and your wine is paired with little treats from all around the city. Walk through Trastevere and inhale the smells, following them to a little coffee spot and maritozzo, Rome’s cream-filled buns. It will be a tour for eating and experimenting, but also one for the seeing parts of the city that others might miss. Along the way, you can admire decaying townhouses, cobbled streets overflowing with color and surprise around every corner with grand squares unfiltered by time. And at some point, you will come across one of the many millennia-old churches that are gilded in gold and excess.

There will be no need for lunch after this tour as you will have been nibbling for hours, so in the afternoon, you can disappear beneath the ground and into haunting catacombs and crypts. More than 2,000 years of bones are piled up here, found in great chambers of musty smells. Stories come with these bones, narrated amid the aromas of history. No other city has old catacombs on such a vast scale, and exploring them will give you a keen sense of how ancient Rome really is. The evening will be free, and there are so many superb restaurants to try across the city, and your guide will be able to provide very trusted recommendations based on your tastes.

Wake to spend your morning in an ancient seaside village with amphitheaters and marketplaces bringing you into antiquity. As a salty sea breeze ruffles past your ears, you can find baths, temples, streets and so many other places untouched by time. While Ancient Rome now stands amid a modern cosmopolitan city, Ostia Antica stands proudly alone, so visiting this seaside village is a great contrast to the temples and ancient sights that are close to your hotel. You will be back in the heart of Rome by mid-afternoon, and the rest of the day will give you a chance to complete your own wish list of Rome experiences. That could be taking photos by the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain, finding a quiet square for watching the world or simply walking the streets to 2,000-year-old monuments.

Fly from capital to capital, straight into the heart of another majestic city. Transfer to your hotel along the River Seine and choose which side to explore. On one bank, you will see the legendary sights with beautiful pieces of history that excite the eyes. Move to the other bank to find small neighborhoods and places to explore without a map. Look one way down the Seine, and you will see the Eiffel Tower, an icon that was hated when first built, its incongruence with other architecture clear to see. Look out the other way to cafes and street corners to find so many places where you could hang around for an hour and watch Paris roll by. The day is left free so that you can sink your feet into the city and relax into the artisanal rhythm.

Paris isthecity for foodies, and it is also a city that can turn anyone into a foodie with so many amazing delicacies on every backstreet. Paris is also a city that can be understood through its food, as shown on today’s tour of Parisian neighborhoods. Start at a market, sampling and celebrating produce from across the country, and then continue to a chocolatier in Saint-Germain for tasty morsels and macaroons to try. Pair cheeses with wines from across France, and enjoy a variety of sausages from across the country. With food as a lens, you have a reason to travel down Parisian backstreets as well, where there is so much that entertains. You’ll be eating for hours, enough to keep you full into the evening, where one of Paris’s famous restaurants could provide a contrast to the day’s tour.

There is so much more to Paris’s art scene than the Louvre and Mona Lisa. That famous portrait is behind glass and usually behind a crowd of hundreds with too muchnoisefor you to get a real feel for its beauty. But there are other rooms in the Louvre that hardly see any visitors, where grand masterpieces cover entire walls. Musee d’Orsay is also a real treat for art lovers, taking you on a journey through so many legendary painters, many of whom once lived in Paris’s bohemian Montmartre suburb. But why restrict yourself to two, in a city with many dozens of galleries?

You will be guided by an art historian, a Parisian that will know the ins and outs of the city’s art scene. Your tour will be customized, and you will visit at least one of the Louvre and Musee d’Orsay as these galleries provide a backdrop and overview to art through the ages, in France and elsewhere in Europe. The other one or two galleries chosen will be based on your interests, and usually includes a private gallery. These stops will take you into the details and allow you to explore a specific thread from Paris’s world-famous art scene. It will be a relaxed tour, informative but laid-back and not too serious, all about admiring the masterpieces rather than getting hung up on historical squabbles around which style is the truer art.

Versailles is the classic day tour from Paris, and there is no doubting the wonder. You might even choose to go there tomorrow, as the challenge with Versailles has always been the crowds – even by skipping lines it is hard to appreciate all the glory. Chateau de Fontainebleau is also a World Heritage Site and former home of royalty, yet it is surprisingly missed by most. Evocative and enchanting, the chateau takes you through the opulence of yesteryear, oil canvases covering the walls and chandeliers dangling down. On a day tour, you can travel by train to Fontainebleau and head straight to the chateau with your local guide illuminating flashy corridors and rooms.

From this grandeur, you will find another slice of tradition, taking a walk through the thrice-weekly market on Fontainebleu’s square. Farmers come from across the region to sell here, beneath the gaze of the old church. You can have lunch in the town square, the weather hopefully allowing you to be outside on the market-side. For the afternoon, you have France’s largest forest, a lovely place to breathe in the fresh air and enjoy some serenity away from the city. It is an hour back to Paris and another night in the City of Lights, perhaps fine dining down the Champs-Elysee, maybe finding a four-table restaurant tucked away down a cobbled street.

Paris is packed with iconic sights and experiences, everything from famous designer stores to back-street bakeries. This day is left free so that you can explore the Paris of your own imagination. Shopping, eating, wandering around small neighborhoods or escaping to sights beyond Paris. You may choose to rest and relax with a coffee and a croissant in view of the Eiffel Tower or Arc de Triomphe. You can also walk down the River Seine, listening to street musicians by the bridges, using the water to navigate Paris’s old glories. This being Paris, there will be countless options for a one last vacation dinner, as Paris can always take visitors on a new culinary journey.

After five days in Rome and five in Paris, it will be time to go home.  Your transfer to the airport is included after one last leisurely breakfast.