Global Ambassador Choir: London and Paris

We will have use of a private coach and driver while touring.

Step outside your hotel for a stroll through the heart of the English-speaking world. In this city of nearly seven million, you'll see everything from 12th-century fortifications to modern skyscrapers, royal parks to street art. Your Tour Director will lead you to some of the most famous sites. Walk along the Thames River. Cross Trafalgar Square. See bustling Piccadilly Circus. Pass trendy shops and cafés in Bohemian Soho on your way to Covent Garden, a 13th-century fruit and vegetable garden transformed into a maze of narrow streets and pedestrian walkways burgeoning with street performers, open-air markets and boutiques.

The group will spend time to perfect the blend and sound of the mass choir in a group rehearsal at our hotel this evening.

The group will have a three hour rehearsal at the hotel this morning.

Join a licensed local guide for an in-depth look at London, from the royal haunt of Buckingham Palace (the official London residence of Queen Elizabeth II) to the slightly more democratic Speakers’ Corner of Hyde Park, where anyone can pull up a soapbox and orate to his heart’s content. You’ll see the changing of the guard (season permitting), the clock tower of Big Ben with its 14-ton bell, and Westminster Abbey, where almost every English king and queen since William the Conqueror has been crowned. After a stop at the Houses of Parliament, continue on to the magnificent St. Paul’s Cathedral, the masterpiece of London architect Christopher Wren.

Potential venues include (but not limited to): Southwark Cathedral, The Community of St. Stephens, Victoria Park Bandstand, St. Gabriel's Church Pimlico, the lively Spitafields Market, Hillsong Church, Christ Church Spitafields, or an exchange with a local school, university or community group. Additional options such as Cadogan Hall or St. Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square are available at additional cost.

The group will have a three hour rehearsal at the hotel this morning.

Get up close and personal with the Tower of London. Towers, rather. Twenty stone towers, as well as tunnels, winding staircases and narrow passageways comprise this huge fortress covering 18 acres on the banks of the Thames. A royal residence from the 11th - 16th centuries, the Tower also served as a jewel safe and a prison. The headless skeletons of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard (Henry VIII's former wives who were executed here) are believed to be buried here. The Crown Jewels are housed here, including the largest cut diamond in the world (530-carats). Beefeaters (guards) lead tours through the Tower.

Potential venues include (but not limited to): Cadogan Hall, The Arts Theater, St. Martin-in-the-Field in Trafalgar or Royal Military School of Music.

Tonight, we will enjoy our evening meal together in a local restaurant.

Take the Eurostar under the English Channel. Faster than you can say... anything, in French, you'll whiz through a tunnel and arrive in Paris.

What's that huge white arch at the end of the Champs-Élysées? The Arc de Triomphe, commissioned by Napoleon in 1806 after his victory at Austerlitz. Your licensed local guide will elaborate on this, and other Parisian landmarks: Arc de Triomphe, Champs Élysées, Eiffel Tower, Champ de Mars, École Militaire, Les Invalides, Conciergerie, Tuileries Garden, Place Vendôme, Opera House.

The world's largest art museum, the Louvre is housed in a Medieval fortress-turned-castle so grand it's worth a tour itself. You walk through the 71-foot glass pyramid designed by I.M. Pei and added in 1989, and step into another world--one with carved ceilings, deep-set windows, and so many architectural details you could spend a week just admiring the rooms. The Mona Lisa is here, as well as the Venus de Milo and Winged Victory (the headless statue, circa 200 BC, discovered at Samothrace). The Louvre has seven different departments of paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures and antiquities. Don't miss the Egyptian collection, complete with creepy sarcophagi, or the collection of Greek ceramics, one of the largest in the world.

Your concert performance is today (upgraded performance). In Paris, venue options include, but are not limited to: Eglise Saint-Germain-Des-Pres and Le Conservatoire (National Conservatory).

This evening you will have dinner on your own at a local restaurant.

The ultimate palace, Versailles was built by Louis XIII, and housed the royal family and its groveling court from 1682, when the Sun King moved in, to the French Revolution. Everything in Versailles is worth a look, from the 250-foot-long Hall of Mirrors, with themed salons- "war" and "peace" -on either side, to Marie Antoinette's faux country hamlet. When being a queen became too much to bear, she would pretend to be a commoner, tending her sheep and wearing peasant clothes.

Your concert performance is today.

Depart to Normandy, France.

See the D-Day beaches where on June 6, 1944, thousands of Allied troops landed in an effort to recapture the coast from Germany. All along the beaches, deserted German bunkers have been turned into memorials and the stark white crosses and stars that mark the cemeteries are grim reminders of the war.

Choir performance at the American Military Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer.

Caen’s Mémorial, a contemporary museum for peace, tells a complete story of D-Day in interactive displays.

Travel to Paris via Rouen.

Like Paris, the port city of Rouen is divided in two by the Seine. Your Tour Director will take you through the medieval cobblestone streets of the city where Joan of Arc was burned in 1431. See the Old Clock surrounded by half-timbered houses and shops, and visit Notre Dame cathedral, a favorite subject of Claude Monet. With its lacy Gothic façade and mismatched spires, Rouen’s cathedral is one of the most compelling in France. Hitler certainly thought so—the first time it caught fire in WWII, he ordered his troops to save it. See the inspired interior, with its columns topped by carved faces, and learn about the history of the church. Fun fact: one of the steeples is called the Tour de Beurre. It was built with money donated by a group of wealthy people who wanted to eat butter during Lent.

Last night in Paris.

Our rewarding and enjoyable tour comes to an end as our Tour Director accompanies us to the airport on our final day.