Day 1 - Arrive Amsterdam

You are met at the airport and transferred by private vehicle to your hotel, situated in the heart of the city. The remainder of the day is at leisure to relax after your journey or to begin your own explorations of the city. This evening, meet your tour director and fellow travellers over drinks, followed by dinner.

Overnight: Sofitel Legend The Grand Amsterdam

Meal Plan: D

Day 2 - Vincent Van Gogh Museum

This morning, enjoy a talk about the short and ultimately tragic life of Vincent Van Gogh, as well as the importance and significance of his extraordinary production of paintings and drawings. Later, visit the famous Van Gogh Museum, where a display of almost 100 of his paintings follows the artist’s development through its various stages.

Dinner this evening is at leisure.

Overnight: Sofitel Legend The Grand Amsterdam

Meal Plan: B,L

Day 3 - The Dutch Countryside & Kröller-Muller Museum

This morning drive into the countryside with landscapes that first inspired the young van Gogh. Arriving at the beautiful De Hoge Veluwe National Park, visit the important Kröller-Muller Museum which contains a significant collection of over 200 of the artist’s works and works of his contemporaries. There is time to enjoy this magnificent collection at leisure and to see works by other modern and old masters, with lunch afterwards in a delightful rural inn. 

Returning to Amsterdam at the end of the afternoon, dine in one of the city’s oldest and most charming restaurants full of the atmosphere of Old Amsterdam.

Overnight: Sofitel Legend The Grand Amsterdam

Meal Plan: B,L,D

Day 4 - Amsterdam - Paris and the Picasso Museum

Travel through Holland and Belgium on the TGV high-speed train, enjoying lunch en route.

Upon arrival in Paris, transfer to the superb Picasso Museum where, in one building, works of art from every period of the painter’s life are exhibited - and, more importantly, those works that Picasso himself owned and especially valued. Although van Gogh had died by the time Picasso was painting, the influence of his strongly expressionistic style considerably marked the artist, who recognised Vincent’s genius. After this richly rewarding visit, transfer to your fine hotel and enjoy dinner à la carte.

Overnight: Four Seasons George V

Meal Plan: B,L,D

Day 5 - Montmartre & Auvers-sur-Oise

This morning visit the lively streets of Montmartre, favourite Parisian haunt of the Impressionists, and see the house in which Vincent lived with his brother Theo, the Moulin de la Galette, immortalised by Renoir, the streets in which Utrillo lived and painted, and revel in the bohemian atmosphere of this attractive district as the Sunday morning markets bustle and bring life to the streets. 

Afterwards, drive out of Paris to Auvers-sur-Oise to visit the very auberge where Vincent Van Gogh lived in the last months of his life, today beautifully restored to look exactly as it did in his time. A lunch of country fare is taken in the auberge itself. 

Visit the small room where he passed away in the arms of his grieving brother, and see the church and fields which he painted so powerfully, the tangled and distorted images of a traumatised mind. 

Dinner this evening at leisure in Paris.

Overnight: Four Seasons George V

Meal Plan: B,L

Day 6 - Giverny - Monet’s House

Drive to Giverny to visit the home of Claude Monet in which he lived for the last 43 years of his life. The interior of the house has been restored to how it looked when the great painter lived there, but the highlight of the visit is the beautiful gardens which were to inspire so many of his canvasses, in particular his famous “Water Lilies” series, which you see on returning to Paris, exhibited at the Orangerie Museum in all the glory that Monet intended when he dedicated the whole work to the French state. A triumph of pictorial composition and execution, the shimmering presence of this great work is a marvel to behold, and is complemented by a stunning collection of Impressionist paintings from the private collection of the great 20th-century art dealer Paul Guillaume. 

Enjoy dinner in a delightfully local and bohemian restaurant before returning to your hotel.

Overnight: Four Seasons George V

Meal Plan: B,L,D

Day 7 - The Impressionists Lecture & Musee d'Orsay

This morning a guest speaker discusses Impressionism, this most popular movement of painting, highly influential on 20th-century art – not only did van Gogh produce Impressionist-style paintings during his brief stay in Paris, but his main work is considered to be one of the most important influences on the Post-Impressionist movement. The rest of the morning is at leisure or you may wish to join an optional visit to the museum dedicated to the sculptor Auguste Rodin, whose work at once immensely powerful and yet lyrical, express some of the passion and intellectual intensity that characterises Vincent van Gogh, Monet and so many other of the artists during this fertile period in the history of art.

To complement this morning’s talk, this afternoon is dedicated to the great Musée d’Orsay, a former train station now converted to house 19th-century objets d’art and paintings. Here you may admire France’s glittering collection of great Impressionist and Post Impressionist masterpieces, a truly extraordinary experience and made all the more fascinating thanks to the insights given at the talk this morning. 

This evening dine in style at glamorous Chez Maxim’s, the restaurant which epitomised all the follies of La Belle Epoque.

Overnight: Four Seasons George V

Meal Plan: B,D

Day 8 - Paris – Avignon

In his later years Monet was able to buy back many of the paintings which he had been forced to sell off due to his financial difficulties, but which he considered key to his development. This morning you may wish to make an optional visit to the Marmottan Museum where these paintings are to be found, including other favourite works of Monet’s that he declined to sell once he had found fame and did not need the income. Added to this is Monet’s private collection of paintings by his friends and contemporaries, the whole representing a unique collection and a fascinating insight into the taste of the great master.

Later, board an early afternoon train and relax in your first-class seats aboard a TGV high-speed train as you travel at up to 170mph through the beautiful countryside into Provence. Check in at your hotel where you enjoy this evening's dinner.

Overnight: La Mirande

Meal Plan: B,L,D

Day 9 - Van Gogh’s Provence

This morning visit the evocative Musée Angladon whose 19th-century art collection contains works by van Gogh, Monet and Renoir, before driving to the asylum into which Vincent admitted himself, seeing the cloisters he painted when he was allowed art equipment, and the tiny chapel in which he struggled with his demons. Enjoy a truly rustic meal in a typical Provençal setting with a peasant farmer typical of the locals who van Gogh loved and painted and yet who ultimately rejected him. 

Afterwards drive to the old Roman town of Arles, where van Gogh lived and worked, harassed by the locals and increasingly desperate and destitute. Walk through the streets he staggered down, invariably drunk, and which have hardly changed from when he knew them, and visit the Place du Forum in which he painted “Café at Night”. 

Afterwards drive out into the fields he painted furiously, at night wearing a straw hat with candles attached around it. You can visit the asylum of St-Paul-de-Mausolée where van Gogh voluntarily admitted himself and spent hours in silence painting the cloisters and nearby orchards. 

Return to your hotel where this evening a guest speaker gives a talk on van Gogh, Gauguin, and the artists of Provence. Afterwards enjoy a farewell dinner.

Overnight: La Mirande

Meal Plan: B,L,D

Day 10 - Cézanne’s Aix-en-Provence

Travel across country to lovely Aix-en-Provence, considered by many to be the most graceful town in Provence, and home of the painter Paul Cézanne. A walking tour of the delightful pedestrian streets showcases the cathedral, the colourful Provencal market, the designer shops and the bustling cafés. Drive to the base of the great Montagne Ste Victoire, which so obsessed Cézanne that he painted it continuously throughout his life, and enjoy a lunch of finely prepared specialities in a truly great country restaurant. 

Back in Aix, visit the studio of Cézanne in which he worked, and which remains exactly as he left it at the time of his death in 1906. This evening meet for drinks to celebrate the conclusion of this rich and rewarding tour and take dinner at leisure.

Overnight: La Mirande

Meal Plan: B,L

Day 11 - Depart Avignon

Transfer to the airport to catch your flight home.

Meal Plan: B