Europe Trip 2026 - Day by Day

Long slow morning at the hub (it's the day after arrival - the “long morning” line is doubled on the binder page on purpose). Then a day trip to Pisa (PEE-zah): stand outside the Leaning Tower in the Piazza dei Miracoli (pee-AHT-zah day mee-RAH-koh-lee), take photos, keep moving. No tower climb, no church interior, no tours. Then drive ~20 km up the coast to Viareggio (vee-ah-REJ-joh) for the afternoon and dinner on the Versilia coast.

Buffer afternoon - anything you didn't get to earlier in the week. Menu to pull from:

June 10, 1944 - four days after D-Day - the SS Das Reich division marched into this quiet village and killed ~600 inhabitants (~6 survivors). Men were shot in barns. Women and children were locked in the church and burned alive. The French president ordered the town left exactly as-is as a living museum.

It has been decomposing in place for 80+ years as a permanent national memorial - rusting cars, collapsed buildings, personal belongings still inside homes.

Drive ~2.5 hrs east into the Dordogne. MUST be this day - Wednesday is market day. Sarlat is the truffle capital of the world and the gastronomic heart of France. One of France's great food markets filling medieval streets. Morning exploring + eating. Spend the day there. Stay overnight in hotel in Sarlat - dramatically more beautiful at night when the honey-colored limestone glows under lamplight.

Grotte de Rouffignac is the cave you literally ride into on a small electric train - deep into the limestone. The walls inside have mammoth engravings and a long ceiling frieze of more than 200 animals. The page nickname (“Animal Flap Day”) sticks because of how many beasts you stack up between the two caves.

Full day at Musée d'Orsay (myoo-ZAY dor-SAY) - possibly the greatest art museum in the world. Plan for 5-5.5 hours. Study the key works beforehand so you know what you're looking at.

Return to condo for a nap after 5+ hours in the museum. Recharge before the evening.

Dinner out, then evening Seine boat ride (2nd day of 2-day pass). Paris at night - Parisian landmarks lit up from the river.

The Louvre - right down the street from the condo. Pre-study, pick top ~10 works, then play it by ear. It will be ridiculously crowded in July.

Père Lachaise (pair lah-SHEZ) - Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Édith Piaf, Chopin. Free admission.

Montmartre (mon-MART-ruh) - bohemian Paris, home of the Moulin Rouge (moo-LAN ROOZH). 125-140 years of artistic/alternative Paris. Artists, cafés, Sacré-Cœur basilica.

Champs-Élysées (shahn-zay-lee-ZAY) military parade. Macron attends. The French are deeply patriotic - comparable to or exceeding American July 4th. Up to a million people on the streets.

5,500 prehistoric stones placed in mysterious alignments stretching across the Brittany countryside. This is a pre-written-history site - we don't know how or why ancient peoples erected these megaliths. Older than Stonehenge. The stones sit on ley lines - proposed alignments between ancient sacred sites across vast distances.

Arrive ~5:30 PM. Dinan is one of Brittany's best-preserved medieval towns - cobblestone streets, half-timbered houses, ancient ramparts. A perfect place to decompress after the travel day before heading into Normandy.

Mont Saint-Michel (mon san mee-SHELL) - UNESCO World Heritage Site. A medieval abbey perched on a tidal island, surrounded by vast sand flats that flood with the tides. One of France's most iconic landmarks - instantly recognizable, utterly unique.

The abbey dates to the 8th century. At high tide, it becomes an island. The narrow streets wind up to the church at the summit. Allow time to explore - it's a small village unto itself.

St. Lo serves as home base for two nights (Jul 17-19). Centrally located for all the D-Day sites. The town itself was nearly destroyed in WWII - 95% of it was leveled during the Battle of Normandy. Known as "The Capital of Ruins."

Chartres Cathedral (SHART-ruh) - 12th century Gothic masterpiece. Home to the Rose Window - considered the finest medieval stained glass in the world. Better preserved than Sainte-Chapelle. The famous labyrinth is built into the floor.

Chartres en Lumières (shart on loo-mee-AIR) - Permanent nightly light projections mapped onto 26 historic buildings. Not seasonal - every night from dusk. Fun fact: The Lumineers (the band) are named after this.