This was our first coach holiday and first time with Leger. Sadly, it will also be our last.
However, there were many good things about the holiday. The arranged visits to the gardens at Versailles, Monet's garden at Giverny, the camenbert museum with cider and cheese tastings, and the cider and calvados farm, also with tastings, were all excellent. Some free time in Rouen was also well-spent visiting sites associated with Joan of Arc and the burial tomb of the heart of Richard the Lionheart in Rouen Cathedral. The excellent weather for early April was an added bonus.
While discussing the tours, our Leger guide was not familiar with the tour not having been to some of the places for more than ten years and others not at all so was unable to provide information other than what he had gleaned from the internet, However, he was a most congenial host on the coach when it came to serving drinks.
The hotel where we were based was perfectly adequate - a French equivalent of a Premier Inn - but only served pizzas in the evenings if you wanted to eat in the hotel. Internet searches provided a good choice of restaurants within a 10 - 20 minute walk and there is a Carrefour supermarket just round the corner from the hotel if you ate a main meal during the day and just wanted a snack (hot croque or bread, cheese and fruit, etc.).
The problems were with the travelling. The journeys to and from home to the pick-up point for the feeder coach were the best parts. We'd paid extra for Leger to arrange a taxi for this 11 mile journey. The timings were spot on with taxi driver knowing exactly where our feeder coach was and when it would arrive at the pick-up point. The taxi was also the most comfortable vehicle of our holiday.
The feeder coach was a standard Shearings coach. The seats were upright and narrow with extremely limited leg room. My wife's knees were right up against the seat in front - very awkward after a knee replacement operation.
The transfers from feeder coaches to the holiday coaches at Folkestone services is an amazing and well-organised operation. My wife found the seating in the Luxuria coach very comfortable. Unfortunately, I didn't. The seat was permanently tilted backwards and could not be adjusted to an upright position, and the calf rests meant that I couldn't sit with my feet tucked underneath.
As the travelling takes up so much of the holiday's time, having one or both of us uncomfortable in our seats means that coach holidays are probably not for us - a pity as we quite fancied Leger's tours to Puglia and to Corsica and Sardinia.
Quality: 4
Value for money: 4
