A Special Thanks To Tour Guides Everywhere...

If there is one thing I would recommend for people who are traveling to a foreign country and plan on visiting any museums or historic sites, it would be to find a great tour guide. Especially if it is your first time visiting a new country.

The trip I took not only had one main tour guide that was exceedingly knowledgeable and took us everywhere and told us everything about anything at any time - which was extremely convenient, but we also had the BEST local guide you could have in France. Having tour guides makes a huge difference in the amount of information and history you get when visiting historic places. This information is compounded exponentially if you have a guide who is passionate about what he does, and loves to pass on his passion, and pride for his country's history.

Our local tour guide, (whose name is frustratingly escaping me at the present moment) was exactly like Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast, from his tone and inflection of voice, to his humor, to his movement. He was as entertaining to watch as he was interesting to listen to. I had him say my name (since it is a French name) just to hear an actual French person speak it...a French person that sounded like Lumiere, that is...
Our group had guided tours around Paris and he had superior knowledge about any point one could pick out. He also had very strong political views and let us know on no uncertain terms how he felt about certain leaders past and present, but the way in which he expressed these views was delightful and witty - never awkward or annoying.

If there is one place in Paris that it is imperative to have a tour guide for, The Louvre would be it. I could not imagine trying to tackle that labyrinth on my own. Not only that, it is impossible to get the sheer amount of history and/or folk lore that is behind any picture or painting you see with a pre-recorded head set or paper guide. Our local guide was a wealth of  historic data on just about every piece we encountered.

Lumiere took us through a little known entrance in the basement of the Louvre. We stood where the moat would have originally been, and were surrounded by the original medieval fortress walls - the only portion of the Louvre from that time that is still visible.  It was easy to hear him, thanks to the wireless headsets provided to us, and we knew we might have wandered a bit too far if we could not hear him through our earphones anymore.
Another place this came in handy was Versailles. The crowd  was so massive there it would have been pointless to have a tour guide trying to shout over the dull roar of people - thanks to the head sets, we never missed a word.
                                                                                                                                                       
Below: The fortress walls of The Louvre. Stonecutters were paid by how many stones they cut, to keep     track, they placed their unique trade mark on each stone that was theirs; this stonecutter left a heart,

The main tour guide we had was a nice older fellow named Robert. Robert was originally from England, but was very learned about all the countries we visited. He had that dry English humor that went over some people's heads..but it was so hilarious. He was also very fun and knew how to engage our group. When we all went out for dinner in Paris, he was up and dancing with everyone while the accordion player sang and played. Indeed, he took us to all the places that one must visit in every country, and also provided narration on our travels to each place, giving us perfectly told history lessons that I could have listened to forever.

So, thank you to tour guides everywhere for sharing your friendship, passion, and knowledge of these wonderful places we visit. You enhance your group's experiences so much more than imagined. Of course, thank you to my tour guides the most, whom I obviously believe were the best in the business! ;)