"Genevieve" travel experiences

That's the correct "Genevieve" but I couldn't remember the exact spelling of her name.

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I've been on these tours: 

  •  Globus's "Eastern US & Canada Discovery with New York City" in 2004

  •  Trafalgar's "Grand of Italy" in 2008

  •  Insight's "Country Roads of Italy" in 2009

  •  Trafalgar's "Best of Spain" in 2011

  •  Trafalgar's "Highlights of Eastern Europe" in 2012

  •  Trafalgar's "Highlights of Eastern Europe" in 2014

I've now retired from my job so I'd like to go on another tour that's longer than 14 days but the weather needs to be decent (not rainy, too hot or too cold) and without crowds.

Any suggestions?

I 2nd chech's recommendation of Insight's Country Roads of Switzerland, although it is only 14 days.  Another tour that might interest you is Insight's Treasure of The Balkans.
www.insightvacations.com/au/tours/treasures-of-the-balkans-preview-2017     although that link might not work for you, as it's the Australian website.


It really depends on where you want to go and do you just want to do 1 long tour, or a couple of shorter ones.
Back Roads Touring has short tours, that travel to several countries and I believe they are a small group tour company. Rabbies Small Group Tours is another company but I think they might concentrate more on the UK.  
If you are thinking of travelling to Asia, there are companies that specialise more in that region.

Have fun with your planning.

In early 2012, while paging through Trafalgar's "Europe" brochure, I didn't see any tour that really interested me until I got to the "Highlights of Eastern Europe" tour but I wondered "how good could a tour to formerly Axis and Communist countries really be?".

But, every time I looked through the brochure, I kept stopping on that tour so I decided to go on it.  Because the "Early Payment Discount" date (in 2012, that deadline was March 1st) was fast approaching, I decided to book the early-October 2012 tour.  At the same time, I also booked two pre-nights in Vienna, all of the flights from California to Vienna and return, and the transfers between the Vienna hotels and the airport.

I didn't hear anything more about my bookings until late August when the airline called me informing me that one of the flights had been cancelled!  I then called the airline back and they said that they had made an error -- all of my flights were still intact.

Then, in early September, Trafalgar called me informing me that my early-October tour had been cancelled.  But they said there was an opening on the same tour a week earlier so I had to reschedule my vacation time with my employer (luckily, that was approved).  I then called Trafalgar back and told them they'd have to pay all of the flight-change fees (which they did) but I still had to re-book the tour, all of the flights, the two pre-nights in Vienna and the airport/hotel transfers.

The tour was wonderful because it visited parts of Europe I hadn't been to before and I was surprised by condition of all of the cities. I especially appreciated the two-night-stays in each city, having free time to explore each of the cities was great.  And the weather throughout the 17 days was perfect.

In late 2013, I decided to repeat the "Highlights of Eastern Europe" tour in October 2014 so I could visit places I didn't see on my first tour.  One thing that went wrong was with my reservation to tour the "Jewish Museums" in Prague.  My reservation was on a Jewish holiday; you'd think the Jewish Museum staff would not sell a ticket for a day the museums were closed.  Also, none of the confirmed early-morning transfers from the ending hotels to the airports were no-shows.  (This problem occurred Madrid, in Rome (both times) and in Vienna (both times).  I had to call the transfer-company at 5 AM to arrange to be picked up).