Of the bus tours - the best!

Our family are tourists with experience of bus travel in Europe. But I am writing a review now, so that it is not under the influence of emotions, but objectively. Repeatedly traveled with "Accord-tour", "Fairy", and the last three trips - with "Selena". I will focus on the last two: "Sea, Gods and Salad" (Greece), in which I would have been with my wife and son in the summer of 2013 and "New Year's Eve in Paris" - 2014.

Of the strengths of Selena, I note the following:

1) Excellent logistics. Unlike other tour operators, we have never encountered the cancellation of any excursions with Selena. What is written in the program was examined by 100%.

2) Own buses. I read reviews about boorish drivers, broken buses, begging for tips, etc. At Selena, they are polite, patient and tactful. The buses are always cleaned, no complaints.

3) Transit hotels. 3-4*, very good! In Paris, they lived in the city, not in the backyards. The company does not save on hotels and this is nice.

4) Tour guides in cities. Despite the fact that not all of them were professional guides, they told very interesting stories.

5) Pricing policy. In any case, in 2013 the price-performance ratio was excellent. At the same time, the escorts did not in any way insist on additional excursions (although they talked about them in an interesting way) and the “refuseniks” were in no way “desecrated”, as it happens.

6) Accompanying. The impression of the most organized and thoughtful tour can be spoiled by the indifference, rudeness and unprofessionalism of the attendants. As the saying goes, “…I won’t tell you for the whole of Odessa…”, but Yulia Movchan (Greece) and energizer Nastya Korobko (Paris) made every effort to make our vacation a success. Respect and respect, solid 5+.

Now about tours.

1. "Sea, gods and salad" (Romania - Bulgaria - Greece).

Surprisingly (and pleasant for us) that the bus was not full and someone got double seats. We put our suitcases on the bus in Kyiv and went to the train. We slept overnight in a compartment, and in the morning we joined the group in Chernivtsi.

Transylvania is amazing. After the tours, I realized that the idea of ​​Romania as a dirty gypsy country, at least in this part of the country, is wrong. Guide Marin is beyond praise. He speaks without an accent and is very interesting. You can visit Dracula's castle 1 time, but you want to return to Peles Castle. I regretted that I did not buy a permit to shoot, one hall of ancient weapons, not to mention the rest, was worth it! Brasov is quite a European city. Clean, beautiful. The hotel is good and so is the food.

The hotel in Sofia is very good. We stayed there 2 times: on the way there and back.

Here is Greece, Platamonas. We chose accommodation at the Dias Hotel with breakfast and dinner in order to think less about food. Breakfast - buffet, dinner - a la carte. You can have lunch at any cafe. The three of us needed 20-25 €. The hotel is located almost in the center, on the waterfront. There is no pool, but it is 100 m from the sea. If you want not a pebbly, but a sandy beach, then in 7-10 minutes a sandy spit with sun loungers is poured.

In the evenings, crowds of people go to the promenade. We often hear our speech.

For about 30-35 €, you can take a taxi to Paraglia Katerinis on your own, where there are several dozen fur coat shops. Prices are lower than ours in two or more times! But this is a separate song?

We did not take many excursions: the three of us went to Meteora, the son also went to Athens. There is not much beauty like the rock monasteries of Meteora in the world to enjoy it, it is not a pity to stomp one and a half hundred steps up and down. It's a long way to go to Athens, but my son liked it. It was a fly in the ointment that our tourists were put on a bus with a Polish group. Of course, almost no one understood fluent Polish, so the knowledge base was not much replenished. Although this is not a blunder of Selena, but the host side is sure that such things should be warned in advance, and not put before the fact. There were other excursions, but we had already rested in this area before, so we came to the beach, which we got one hundred percent.

There were tourists who, having found out that the Greeks give a visa with a margin, at the end of the tour found themselves housing and stayed for another week, they were taken away with the next group. If they knew that this happens, they would take a longer vacation.

They took with them a canister of oil, olives, olives and other food. All this is better to buy in stores on the second line.

On the way back we had an interesting tour of Sofia. Before leaving the hotel, in the morning we stocked up in the market nearby. Why is EVERYTHING more expensive? Rhetorical question...

In short, I liked the tour and if this year the route ran through other cities, we would go again!

2. "New Year in Paris" (Hungary - Austria - Germany - France).

I think this tour has remained, but it is called somehow differently.

In Eger (Hungary), they sat like Japanese macaques in a warm hydrogen sulfide pool. From this year there is an innovation - they take 1000 forints of deposit for the key to the locker! Moreover, 2000 for two keys does not work, they put money in each cell. If you don’t stock up on the banknote or coins you need in advance, at least shoot yourself! Also in Eger, in our opinion, great wine tasting and good goulash. Won a bottle of wine by beating our national drinking contest, plus bought more wine for the road. We like local wines more than Tokay ones, but this is a matter of taste.

We have been to Budapest many times, so instead of a sightseeing tour, leaving our suitcases on the bus, we took the metro to the Széchenyi baths. Passed all the pools and saunas, baldeli five hours! Baths next to the Heroes' Square, where the review ended. At the appointed time, they came up, got into our bus - and we were on our way!

Salzburg is beautiful. The guide is our former compatriot, a musician. He has been living there for 10 years and says about Austria "we have ...". Impregnated with local rules and traditions. Intelligent, nice to hear. And the tour does not lead from store to store, which is what his colleagues sin, but lively and interesting. The review is informative, but there is time to admire the beauties, and take pictures, and eat. For gifts, they collected chocolate, coffee, liqueurs. Everything is high quality and not expensive.

On the territory of Germany, on the way there, we only spent the night, another spurt and we broke into Versailles. Of course, for the new year, both here and in Paris itself, there are a lot of people, as they say, “come in large numbers”. But the guide and I, bypassing the long line, immediately went to the palace. I won’t comment on anything - the beauty is awesome, you can’t convey it in words. We spend the night in the business district of Paris - La Defense, in the hotel of the same name. Breakfast - poor, European. Many Chinese: the economy is working, people have the opportunity to travel.

They took me on an “excursion” to a perfume shop. As is customary, a museum-shop. My wife bought herself a bucket of perfume and some beaker for me. But the quality! I sprayed it once on my jumper, a week has already passed, and the smell is like yesterday.

In the evening we go to a cafe to celebrate the New Year. There - by our bus, back - on our own. In general, we do not favor "Turkish nights", "fish picnics", "tastings", etc. thinking it's not worth it. But it's still New Year's. The area in the cafe where our tables were located was very limited. There were more people than people. The dishes began to be served. Seeing matchbox-sized sandwiches smeared with something like shrimp oil, people tensed up, expecting more for €90. Served champagne, frogs. Meat is like meat, but how much of that meat is there? But in addition to regular booze, we have a bottle in each couple's purse, we need a snack! When the snails were brought, the dissatisfied called the escort. To be honest, Nastya arrived and somehow settled the brewing murmur. Whether it was on the menu or not, I don’t know, but finally they brought hefty plates of meat and potatoes. Russians were sitting nearby. New Year in Moscow, in Kiev, in Paris and everyone is already well! And the atmosphere is joyful, they started dancing, it's fun! We continued to celebrate under the Notre Dame Cathedral, so don't leave Ukrainian champagne to the French! It was so much fun that they slammed the closing of the subway. We traveled in small groups by taxi, the pleasure is not cheap, but what to do?

Paragraph summary:

1. For people traveling by bus tours, you should not order exotics such as frogs and snails. It costs decently, but it turns out that there is nothing to eat.

2. You should not expect much from such feasts, if you don’t like it - go and look for yourself. Some of our couples have done just that. They were very satisfied and did not blow anyone's brain. After all, someone makes a pre-order and reserves places, everyone gets a commission, and this gives a cheat, decent for our money.

3. Accompanying Nastya Korobko is a smart girl. At least, for the fact that she specially came to settle the discontent, even though she almost cried herself. I remember once in Croatia our escort left us in the care of a guide, whom she forgot to pay, and she herself went to sleep in a hotel. There was a lot of fun: a dumbfounded guide, an evil group ...

4. I don’t know how the issue was resolved with the necessary time for the bus to settle down and the rest of the drivers, but our neighbors in the hall, the Russians, were collected, put on the bus and carefully taken to the hotel (although they lived somewhere outside the city). It would be good for us too.

On the morning of the 1st - a survey of Paris, photographing against the backdrop of the tower, the Champs Elysees, we also rode a steamboat on the Seine, there is an audio guide, everything is clear. In general, all the sights and beautiful buildings are located near the Seine. You can’t get on the tower: there is a queue, as in your time in the mausoleum! It was necessary to stand for 4 hours, but they did not. In general, Paris disappointed with the abundance of garbage and the Arab-Negro population, which throws this garbage without any hesitation. Negroes impudently pester with souvenirs.

The next day is the Louvre. He did not work on the 1st, so there were people - not crowded. You can’t get closer to Monna Lisa than 5-8 meters, a solid crowd! You can take pictures, so the flashes are already rippling. But the impressions remained, thanks to the guide and receptionists, which she issued. Otherwise, nothing would be heard.

Evening tour of Montmartre. It was conceived in a romantic style, with an overview of the quarters, artists, their paintings and other delights, but the rain ruined everything. Those who took tickets to the cabaret did not lose. The rest, shivering chillily, galloped over the pagorbs and visited the church of Sekrikor. But here, as they say, just bad luck.

But time has passed, Paris - goodbye, hello Nuremberg! Indeed, a very German city. It's hard to believe that 92% of the buildings were bombed during the war. Houses, churches, monuments were rebuilt. Not a single skyscraper ugly spoils the central part of the city, which is all under the tiles. Relatively inexpensive and very quiet. The tour guide was well done, everything was interesting. At the same time, there was still time to do some decent shopping, although some of them started it before the start of the tour.

On the way back there was again a wine tasting in Tokai, but we wandered around the city and had a bite to eat ourselves.

As a positive point, I note the programmed visit to Tesco both on the way there and back. We stocked up on local meat delicacies, Unicum liqueur - and home!

The films on the way are selected by topic and there was a very large selection.

It’s good that there were no obvious brakes and other problematic tourists in the group who rattle the nerves of everyone around, and Nastya Korobko very skillfully smoothed out dissatisfaction, a professional !!!

In addition, I would like to thank Selena for the New Year's gift - a multivisa, as well as for a wonderful vacation. Tune in to the positive, take the troubles easier and everything will be great !!!

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