Zicasso Travel Stories: Nourishing Connections in France

I had some experience with pre-packaged group tours and plenty of independent travel arrangements before my first curated trip through Zicasso. I took a popular travel brand package to Italy, which required making my own appointments in three cities. On my guided bus tour of Greece, I couldn’t escape the crowds because I was part of the crowd.

I even planned my own family heritage trip to Germany. My moderate fluency in German made navigating more feasible, but it still required over 30 hours of coordinating details across eight cities. That trip acted as a pricing and logistics comparison, underscoring the value of a customized Zicasso vacation.

By working with an expert, I could better optimize time exploring versus planning.

I got up in the morning, my body adjusting to the time zone after a very long day. With a shot of espresso – a little tired physically and mentally not adapted yet – I went for a walk down the Champs de Mars in the morning sun with my son, and there was the Eiffel Tower. It felt like, “This is Paris! We are actually here!”

The experience of walking around Paris, seeing another patisserie and selecting something to take back to the hotel; finding Malongo coffee roaster and café, where they roast their own coffee and I could have a conversation with the roast master; and having lunch on a boat on the River Seine with my family was a shared, unique life experience we could never duplicate.

We visited the Louvre on an after-hours tour, without the crowds and with a guide. Of course, we saw the iconic pieces, including the Mona Lisa, but our guide led us through the labyrinth to the places we would be interested in.

He was efficient about it, and then he’d tell a story associated with the piece we were looking at. Instead of a tour defined by a time limit, it felt like a tour outside of time.

While we loved our afternoon at Versailles, the best part of the experience was our guide, Jonathan. He was an educated 26-year-old Frenchman, eager to answer any questions, including one of my favorites, “Is there a narrative for this place that gives a person from this place a sense of identity and values? What might that story be?”

Jonathan had patience, tolerance, and appreciation for his culture. That is how you connect. You meet with someone who can articulate the “what” and the “why”, and do it in an infectious and articulate way!

My family really appreciates wines. My daughter even worked for a wine company at the time. We are from Northern California, and when visiting a vineyard in the area, it’s not often that the winemaker will talk about the soil. But in France, the first thing they talked about was soil and growing conditions.

We visited a winery, Château de Tracy, and tasted their excellent Haute Densité. The winemaker had a piece of flint on the countertop where our tasting took place. He said, “Here, smell this,” and clapped two pieces of flint together, creating dust in the air. We learned what the local flint smelled like.

“Is it in your wine?” the winemaker asked.

Then I took a sip. We actually found that flavor in the wine! That sense of connection to the soil was magical!

Flavigny was a partially abandoned but still functioning medieval town in the lovely French countryside.

A monument stood to an ancient battle important to the locals and their sense of place, but the past and present commingling was lovely.

The French countryside reminded me of growing up in Western Oregon – similar climates, it rains a fair amount, agricultural. It all felt really familiar. Part of what makes the world small is that you go somewhere and it can feel like home, like where you grew up. It was great to share that with my family.

Dave and his family found different types of majesty in France with the help of a Zicasso travel specialist. You can create your perfect experience away from crowds with the help of a local travel expert who can arrange intimate encounters and curate meaningful experiences tailored to your distinct interests, whether wine tasting, historical tours, culinary discoveries, and more.

Find inspiration for your exploration with our France tours and vacations, and discover the spirit of joie de vivre with timeless experiences, destinations, and more with our France travel guide.