Classic Europe: Paris, Switzerland, Venice & Rome, 8 Nights

Arrive at Charles de Gaulle, where the tour manager meets the group after immigration, and transfer to the hotel. Depending on the arrival time you may get an orientation drive past the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs-Elysees. Dinner is Indian, at one of the restaurants around La Chapelle.

Up the Eiffel Tower to the second level by lift, with a booked slot so there is no three-hour queue. A city coach tour covers Place de la Concorde, Les Invalides, the Opera and the rebuilt Notre-Dame, and the afternoon closes with a Bateaux cruise down the Seine past the Musee d'Orsay and the Ile de la Cite.

Morning inside the Louvre with a booked entry — the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory are all in the Denon wing, which is where to start if you have three hours and not three days. Afternoon at Montmartre for Sacre-Coeur and the artists' square, and at Galeries Lafayette under its 1912 stained-glass dome. Families with children usually swap the whole day for Disneyland Paris, which we book separately.

A long coach day east through Burgundy and the Jura into central Switzerland. In Lucerne you walk the Kapellbrucke, the covered wooden bridge of 1333 with painted panels in its roof beams, and see the Lion Monument that Mark Twain called the saddest piece of stone in the world. A lake cruise on Lake Lucerne closes the afternoon.

Up from Engelberg in three stages, the last of them the Rotair — a cabin that turns through 360 degrees as it climbs the glacier to 3,020 metres. At the top there is the Glacier Grotto cut into the ice, the Cliff Walk suspension bridge and the Ice Flyer chairlift over the crevasses. Take gloves; it is below freezing up there even in July.

The Lucerne to Milan train runs through the Gotthard base tunnel and out into the Italian lakes; from Milan the coach continues to Venice. A private water taxi takes the group across the lagoon to St Mark's Square for the Doge's Palace facade, the Bridge of Sighs and a glass-blowing demonstration by a Murano master. You sleep on the mainland at Mestre.

South on the A1 with a two-hour halt at Florence — Piazzale Michelangelo for the view over the Duomo and the Arno, and a walk to the Ponte Vecchio with its goldsmiths' shops still on the bridge. Reach Rome by evening and check in near Termini. Dinner is Indian, on Via Principe Amedeo.

A guided morning at the Colosseum, which held 50,000 people in AD 80, and the Roman Forum next door where the republic actually governed. Afternoon inside the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel — booked entry, because the walk-up queue runs to four hours — ending in St Peter's Basilica. The Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps are a short walk from the hotel if you still have legs.

Breakfast and transfer to Fiumicino. Allow three hours: the VAT refund desk in Terminal 3 is slow, and you must have the goods, the receipts and the stamped forms with you before you check the bags in. The tour manager stays with the group until the final security queue.