Hidden Europe: unique experiences in Europe's cities
08/09/2020 · By Katie Shaw
Europe’s cities are treasure troves of culture, teeming with iconic, must-see sights to enthral even the most seasoned of tourists.
Read more2022 Tour code: POG22
About the tour
Flowing from northern Spain to the ocean in Porto, the Douro River carves our route through a rolling landscape of vineyards. Discover its ever-changing scenery and gastronomic delights before we continue to vibrant Lisbon, with its Moorish influences, Fado music and charming streets.
Highlights
What’s included
Itinerary
We take the Eurostar from London St Pancras to Paris, continuing to Biarritz or Bayonne for the night.
Additional information
Hotels
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Reviews
4.1 / 5 · 28 reviews
Mrs R Bullen
Submitted 7/Jul
Overall very comprehensive, but tiring, with six different hotels of accommodation. Tour manager friendly, and helpful, with a lot to fit in. Glad to have seen the various locations, with the trip on the River Douro the highlight. Good food, overall, and some interesting evening visits to local areas of culture. The wide area of towns and sites were very varied, but being left to your own devices, some of the time, became a little challenging.
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Catherine Stokes
Submitted 6/Jul
The first week was the worst ever we’ve had with Great Rail Journeys. GRJ used a company called First Luggage to transport cases from our home to the 2nd hotel on our itinerary. Our case should have arrived on the Monday night when we arrived in Salamanca and we eventually got it on the Saturday, 6 days after we started the holiday. No-one wanted to take any responsibility to resolve the matter and I spent a good part of the week either emailing or phoning to try and sort it out myself. GRJ have since given us financial compensation for this but we feel that it ruined a holiday that we had waited 2 years to go on. The holiday itself started badly with a 3.5 hour delay on Eurostar which meant that we missed our connection in Paris for Biarritz. I’ve never been on a holiday where so much went wrong, Some of it not GRJ’s fault but it set the tone of the holiday. This was our 5th GRJ holiday and if it had been our first I doubt we would have booked a second.
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Mr G Young
Submitted 1/Jul
This could have been 4 stars but Great Rail have let themselves down with poor communication before and since returning home. Before: the impact (loss of day in Lisbon and a further lost day in San Sebastian) due to detour via Madrid was not fully explained. After: no reply as yet (1/7) to email sent 21/6. In addition there was no explanation why we had to travel 2nd class on way back from Hendaye to Paris Montparnasse - while a partial refund has been received 1st class tickets were available. Also impacting the score was the meal on the last night in San Sebastian which was shocking and did leave a bad "taste" (sorry!). First Luggage experience was "clunky" but okay, although how does it take 2 working days for luggage to go from UK to Spain but 7 working days from Spain to UK? In addition the email to remind us of pickup and the various documents to be attached, etc. was received AFTER we had returned to the UK. Overall we did enjoy the holiday, seeing the various cities and in particular the Douro River cruise and the meals at the vineyard and Taylors in Porto were our highlights.
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Suzanne Otto
Submitted 16/Jun
Fabulous holiday overall. However overshadowed on day 12 and day 13 by unnecessary stopover in Madrid which involved complicated lengthy coach and train journeys which were not in original itinerary and were just too tiring. For example we arrived so late in Madrid that dinner was started at 10pm. An overnight sleeper train would have been much more suitable even if we wouldn't have had a personal bathroom on board. All the hotels were very good apart from the Porto Bay Hotel in Porto. It had recently been refurbished to a not good enough design or standard in our room e.g light fitting fell out and access to toilet was via a wobbly sliding glass panel that was noisy every time! Not good if in a twin room as we were! Staff in all hotels were pleasant and polite. Food was good for us in all hotels. Our tour manager was friendly, helpful and clearly good at her job with plenty of experience too.
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George Taylor
Submitted 16/Jun
This was a wonderful trip, particularly the journey down the Douro. It was a great pity that the overnight sleeper is no longer available. Our trip benefitted from having only 14 participants, much pleasanter than numbers well over 20.
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mr anthony greenhalgh
Submitted 11/Jun
Excellent trip to some very interesting places. Welll organised and very good hotels. Would recommend.
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Europe by Rail 2022
The definitive guide to our 2022 summer rail holidays to a wide range of destinations in Europe.
A rail and cruise tour through the Douro Valley
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