Compare Band of Brothers Tours by Stephen Ambrose Tours vs Friuli Venezia Giulia and Slovenia Cycling Tour by Tourissimo

DAY 1 We Begin (15-Day Tour)
The tour begins in Atlanta with an informal Welcome Reception where participants will have an opportunity to get acquainted with each other and meet the historians and tour staff. A brief overview of the legacy of Easy Company and their contributions to the war in Europe will set the stage for the days ahead.

DAY 2 Toccoa: Birthplace of the 506th
Ask any of the original members of Easy Company what made the unit so special and they will answer: “Toccoa.” This training ground in the north Georgia woods was where the bonding process among the men of the 506th began. As it did for so many of the men of Easy Company, our tour of Toccoa will begin at the train station where recruits for the 506th first arrived. The station also houses the Stephens County Historical Society – the 506th Museum – to view their unique collection of artifacts and memorabilia from Camp Toccoa. Following lunch, we travel to the site of the camp and then proceed up Mount Currahee, the 1,000 ft. the mountain that the men of the 506th ran daily for training. Here they drew their inspiration and motto Currahee, an Indian word meaning "We Stand Alone." After, we head to the airport for the trans-Atlantic flight to London. Trans-Atlantic flights are included with the 15-day tour.
For 13-day guests, your accommodations near the London Heathrow Airport are scheduled one day before the arrival of the 15-day guests. Enjoy London!

DAY 3 England, Prelude to Invasion
13-day guests meet the motor coach driver in the hotel lobby and head to the airport. The 15-day guests are picked up and the main tour officially starts for everyone. We will visit Littlecote House, the historic English manor house that was headquarters for the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment for the six months prior to the invasion. We will tour Aldbourne, the tiny Wiltshire village that was the home of Easy Company and visit many of the buildings used by the men of Easy as they prepared for the greatest invasion in history. When in the village we will have an opportunity to enjoy a traditional lunch in the same pubs frequented by the men of the Easy Company over 60 years ago.

DAY 4 Crossing the Channel
We begin our day in Portsmouth with a visit to the award-winning D-Day Museum and Southwick House, the elegant country house which became the location of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force. In the months leading up to D-Day, Southwick House became the headquarters of the main Allied commanders: Allied Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower; Naval Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Ramsay; and the Army Commander-in-Chief, General Montgomery. Large wall maps that were used in planning D-Day are still in place in the house, with markers showing the positions of the involved forces at the moments of the first landings. After our visit to Southwick House, we board the cross-channel ferry to France.

DAY 5 Fortress Europe
At the start of the invasion, several members of Easy Company landed in and around Ste-Mere- Eglise, including Richard Winters, Carwood Lipton, and Bill Guarnere. Here we begin our historical tracings of the 506th in France. This is where Dick Winters took command after the tragic death of Lt. Thomas Meehan. From Ste-Mere-Eglise, we follow the route Lieutenant Winters and a handful of men took on the first night of the invasion to Brecourt Manor. In 1944, the manor was the site of a German battery that threatened the invasion beaches at Utah.
From the manner, we proceed to Utah Beach and the Utah Beach Museum. From Ste-Marie-du-Mont, we will travel past Dead Man's Corner, and into Carentan, the Norman town that was one of the Allies earliest objectives. We will see the site of Easy Company's battle as they entered the town on June 12, and the square from which General Maxwell Taylor presented awards to his men for their gallant performance during the invasion.

DAY 6 Normandy Coast
Rising early the next morning, we will drive to Omaha Beach where the Americans took the German fortifications after a stupendous fight. The six-mile wide invasion beach is surrounded by cliffs that made the landing and attack extremely difficult. Landings here were necessary in order to link with British landings to the east at Gold Beach with the American landing to the west at Utah Beach, thus providing a continuous foothold on the Normandy coast. Very little went as planned during the landing at Omaha Beach. Many landing crafts missed their targets throughout the day. German defenses were strong and inflicted heavy casualties on US troops. Losses were especially high in the first wave of landings; there were 2,400 casualties on Omaha Beach alone. We will study the battlefield and hear accounts of the action, cross the beach, analyze the maps and imagine the courage that saved our freedom that day.

Today the American Cemetery stretches along the bluff overlooking Omaha Beach. It covers 172 acres, and contains the remains of American military dead, most of whom were killed during the invasion of Normandy and ensuing military operations in World War II. The names of the Americans who lost their lives in the conflict but could not be located and/or identified are inscribed on the walls of a semicircular garden at the east side of the memorial. We will spend some time at the cemetery to pay our respects.

In the afternoon we will visit the bridge over the Caen Canal, today called Pegasus Bridge after the symbol of the British airborne forces. Pegasus Bridge, captured by a gliderborne company of the 6th Division British Airborne Troops, was the first engagement of D-Day, and the turning point of World War II.

DAY 7 Remember September
Today we will study Operation Market Garden, the largest airborne operation of the war. In broad daylight, the 101st Airborne Division parachuted into Holland in a bold strike in order to seize bridges across rivers and adjacent canals from Belgium to Arnhem. From there we will head to Son, location of the 506th’s drop zone and the bridge over Wilhelmina. Under the command of Colonel Sink, their mission was to capture the bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal and then advance south to Eindhoven. We will then follow the companys route into Eindhoven and visit Saint Catherine's church where many of the original liberators gathered in September 1944. Our last stop of the day will be the Veghel battle site, where all of the 101st Airborne Division fought to keep Hell's Highway clear of enemy troops.

DAY 8 In Holland Where They Stand
Our travels continue along Hells Highway, the route followed by the British XXX Corps as it attempted to reach its embattled 1st Airborne Division, in Arnhem. Our travels will also take us to the famous bridge over the Rhine that was the objective of Operation Market Garden, the Bridge of Nijmegen.

Following lunch at the De Westerbouwing restaurant, which in 1944 was a German observation position, we travel to the Island, a 5-kilometer strip of land between the Neder Rijm and the Waal and the northernmost point of Allied territory. While at the Island, we will visit the E Company positions during the month-long stalemate at the end of Operation Market Garden. After a stop at Tor Schoonderlogt, a farm which was the 2nd Battalion Headquarters, we will visit Easy Company's jump off point for Operation Pegasus, a mission to rescue trapped British paratroopers.

We will walk the site of the fight at the Crossroads, where E Company attacked and destroyed a company of elite SS soldiers, preventing over 300 German soldiers from joining an attack on the 506th regimental headquarters. You will stand in the very spots where American and German forces stood, and will understand what Stephen Ambrose meant when he said that the best way to understand history is to study the places it was made.

DAY 9 Bastogne
Our next stop is Bastogne, Belgium, the site of the divisions epic eight-day stand against the Germans in December 1944. Along the way, we stop at the American Battle Monuments Commissions Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial at Margraten to pay our respects at the graves of Easy Company men killed in Holland and Belgium. In Bastogne we visit the Battle of the Bulge Museum and General Anthony McAuliffe's headquarters during the siege.

DAY 10 The Bois Jacques and Beyond
Saturday starts with a visit to the Bois Jacques, Halt Station and Easy Companys foxholes overlooking the village of Foy. From Foy we will follow the companys route through Recogne, stopping to visit the German cemetery, Cobru, Noville and Luzory. We conclude our day at the American Cemetery in Luxembourg, where General George S. Patton is buried with members of his 3rd Army.

DAY 11 The Last Patrol
From Bastogne we head to Fort Simserhof, a beautifully preserved Maginot Line fortification, and a visit to the Muse de la Fortification du Simserhof. Our day concludes with a visit to Hagenau, the site of some of Easy Company's final battles and several daring patrols.

DAY 12 Why We Fight
On April 29, 1945, as they advanced into the Bavarian Alps, Easy Company liberated a satellite of the Dachau concentration camp at Landsberg. We will visit Dachau, site of some of the most nefarious acts of and against humankind during the war, as we travel south through Bavaria. Constructed in a disused gunpowder factory, Dachau was the first concentration-style camp after which all subsequent concentration camps were modeled. In total, over 200,000 prisoners from more than 30 countries were housed in Dachau, with at least 30,000 registered prisoners are believed to have died in the camp and its subcamps: notably Jews, resistance fighters, clergymen, politicians, communists, writers, artists and royalty. The second camp liberated by British or American forces, Dachau was one of the first places where the west was exposed to Nazi brutality.

DAY 13 The Eagle’s Nest
Our study of Easy Company battlefields ends at Adolf Hitler's Alpine retreat at Berchtesgaden, where we will visit the Eagles Nest and the remains of the vast Nazi Party complex liberated by Easy Company in May 1945. Eagles Nest was built as a 50th birthday present to Hitler from the Nazi party. Perched at 6017 feet, the Eagle's Nest and the road network leading to it were considered feats of engineering as they were completed in only 13 months time in 1937-38.

DAY 14 Points
As it did for the men of Easy Company, our travels will end at Zell am See and Kaprun, Austria, where they celebrated the anniversary of their jump into Normandy with a parachute drop into the waters of the Zeller See Lake. In the evening we will have a final special banquet, where we can reflect on our trip and the Band of Brothers role in securing victory in Europe.

DAY 15 Going Home
Depart our hotel in Berchtesgaden for Munich and our flight back home.

Day 1: Grado - Aquileia

Meals: Lunch and Dinner

Accommodation: Hotel Villa Bernt

Terrain: Flat

Ride: 13 mi or 22 km

A private shuttle will take you to our hotel on an island-village on the Adriatic. Grado is Friuli’s lagoon city, a town with 1600 years of history, which can still be experienced by strolling the calli (streets) of the ancient city center. Grado was the first port of entry for ships headed upstream to nearby Aquileia, a powerful Roman city on the river Natisone.

After some lunch and presentations, we ride inland to Aquileia. The colony was founded in 180BC and served as a strategic frontier fortress at the northeast corner of Transpadane (on the far side of the Po river) Italy.

Back at the hotel, you will receive an overview of the tour program followed by dinner.

Day 2: Collio Hills

Meals: Breakfast and Dinner

Accommodation: La Subida

Terrain: Rolling

Ride: 30 mi or 48 km

After fine tuning our bikes some more, we ride along the Natisone river and we reach Gorizia for a short visit and some lunch. Once a favorite spot of the Hapsburg nobility, since 1947 Gorizia has been split in two, with Nova Gorica developing on the other side of the Italian–Slovenian border. We are in the dramatic Carso area with its limestone formations, grottoes, and underground rivers. La Subida is a charming country hotel and the hospitality of the Sirk family is legendary. Tonight, we will have dinner at l'Osteria, which is part of the La Subida Estate. La Subida is a place that makes our guests feel at home and relaxed. It's unique.

Day 3: Cividale Loop

Meals: Breakfast and Lunch

Accommodation: La Subida

Terrain: Hilly

Ride: 28 mi or 45 km

Today's ride leads us northward to Cividale del Friuli (UNESCO site). We will be pedaling through the Collio and Colli Orientali del Friuli wine area for about 30 mls of easy and rolling terrain. Cividale del Friuli will be our lunch stop and then we will head back to La Subida from a different road. Before reaching the hotel, we will stop at a local winery for lunch and wine tasting. The family-owned Grillo winery is in the center of the Schioppettino wine production (very rare and hard to find anywhere else in Italy). Relax back at La Subida before dinner.

Day 4: Bovec

Meals: Breakfast and Dinner

Accommodation:  Hotel Alp

Terrain: Rolling Hills

Ride: 46 mi or 74 km (shorter option available)

Today's ride takes us out of Friuli, heading northeast to the border of Slovenia. We will notice the landscape changing as we ride through the lowest mountain pass of the Alps, a long, easy smooth climb that takes us to the former border between Italy and Slovenia. Entering Slovenia we will find ourselves in a lush, green landscape with the typical vegetation of a mountain region, with rivers, waterfalls, and forests. Silence and very few cars make this and the next rides heavenly. Our lunch stop is in Caporetto/Kobarid and we have planned a visit to the WWI museum, a small but very complete and interesting house where the people from Caporetto have collected pictures and objects through which they tell the history of WWI as it was lived by the soldiers and civilians in that valley where we bike during our tour. In the afternoon we cruise to Bovec following the Soča river valley. You'll have time to explore Bovec on your own ant to enjoy a cold beer while watching the sunset behind the high mountains that surround the valley where Bovec is nestled. A short walk to the center of Bovec and we will find our dinner table ready at a local Gostilna, a simple, typical ‘trattoria’ style restaurant where we can enjoy our Slovenian meal.

Day 5: Bovec

Meals: Breakfast and Dinner

Accommodation: Hotel Alp

Terrain: Rolling Hills

Ride: 23 mi or 37 km

Bovec is known as the adventure capital of Slovenia, and we have a full day here to rest and enjoy a wide range of outdoor activities: kayaking, rafting, canoeing, paragliding, mountain biking, hiking and more. Kayaking in the emerald waters of the Soca River while immersed in the landscape of high peaks, forest and waterfalls is an unforgettable experience not to be missed. For those who like hiking there are some interesting trails with historical traces of WWI and WWII just outside of Bovec, with a war cemetery, two old forts and some bunkers and tunnels dating back to the Napoleon era and WWI. A bike ride will also be available if you want to explore the countryside up to the edge of Triglav National Park, in a remote little valley where only sheep and cows are witnesses to our slow-paced ride through paradise. Dinner is on your own.

Day 6: Fusine Lake to Bled

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Accommodation: Hotel Astoria Bled

Terrain: Rolling Hills

Ride: 37 mi or 59 km

Today we’ll go across the Alps to reach Tarvisio, a town on the border where Italy, Austria and Slovenia meet. A bus will shuttle us and our bikes over a mountain pass and down to the enchanting Fusine lakes where an easy and flat bike path starts. We’ll follow the bike path along the valley, once again immersed in a beautiful forest and with mountains all around us. Past the town of Kranjska Gora we’ll leave the main path and enter a secondary valley, now riding on an unpaved (but smooth) bike path.  This valley, the Radovna Valley, is the most beautiful, magical and enchanting place of the whole tour. Streams, small waterfalls, tall trees, water mills, a few old farmhouses and some cows are what we will see during the almost 10km of riding in this heavenly valley. Once we leave the valley we will be very close to Bled and if time and weather permit we can take a detour to admire the Vintgar Gorge, a canyon carved by the Vintgar River. A boardwalk runs along the gorge and from there we can view waterfalls and rapids.

Bled is our final destination today. We’ll bike along the lakeshore to reach Hotel Astoria in the center of Bled. Dinner will be at a castle overlooking Lake Bled. If time allows it, you can visit the interesting museum inside the Bled Castle. 

Day 7: Ljubljana

Meals: Breakfast and Dinner

Accommodation: Allegro Garni Hotel

Ride:  None

Today we’ll transfer by private bus (about 1 hr) to Ljubljana. Upon arriving, you will have a guided visit of the town center of this UNESCO-recognized gem. You will have some free time in the afternoon to explore on your own and to do some shopping. We will enjoy our final dinner at one of the finest restaurants in town.

Day 8: Ljubljana

Meals: Breakfast

Terrain: Departure

Ride: None

After breakfast, we’ll provide a transfer to the Ljubljana airport.