The art of being shown around: a luxury tour through the South of France

What makes a great guided trip different from an ordinary one? Abby Pezze from Wolf & Turner Travel Associates went to the South of France to find out, across two of touring’s most refined brands.

As luxury travel experts, our advisors travel the holidays they recommend, and guided touring is one that tends to surprise people. Its reputation - a crowded coach, a flag held aloft, a rushed march past the sights - has little to do with how it works at the luxury end. Luxury Gold and Insight Vacations are sister brands within The Travel Corporation, and both take care of the driving, the logistics and the local expertise so you’re free to simply be there. Insight Vacations is the premium tier: four- and five-star hotels, more space and smaller groups than a standard tour, and refined dining. Luxury Gold is the step up into true luxury - The Travel Corporation’s most exclusive touring brand, with very small groups, handpicked five-star and boutique stays, and exclusive experiences you can’t arrange on your own, from private, after-hours access to landmark sites to dinners in places you’d never find alone.

Knowing which of the two suits which client is a judgement you can only really make by travelling both, so Abby Pezze took a single trip through the French Riviera and Provence that moved between the two styles, and came back with a clear view. Here’s what stood out, in her words.

There’s a moment I keep coming back to, the one that sums up the whole trip: lunch on the terrace of the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, the Mediterranean laid out below, after a morning wandering the gardens and gilded rooms of a Belle Époque mansion built by a Rothschild baroness. In one long, unhurried sitting it was everything the French Riviera does best.

We drove from Nice along the coast, past part of the Monaco Grand Prix circuit, the Royal Palace and the cathedral. What turned Monaco from a photo stop into the highlight of the morning was our Travel Director, Laurent, who told the story of the Grimaldi family - the history, the traditions, the scandals, the modern-day dramas - so well the whole group fell quiet to listen. It’s exactly the kind of local expertise I know my clients would value.

That’s the difference an expert on the ground makes - the moment a place stops being a sightseeing stop and starts telling you its story.

Then came Provence, which won me over completely - the leg I’d build a whole trip around for clients who think touring isn’t for them. We drove the vineyards and villages of the Luberon in a vintage Citroën 2CV, wandered the medieval lanes of Saint-Paul-de-Vence, and stopped for a winery visit and a picnic of local produce and regional wines. The one thing I still can’t quite describe is Carrières des Lumières at Les Baux-de-Provence, where famous paintings are projected across the walls of a former limestone quarry and set to music; you have to stand inside it to understand it.

We stayed in lovely properties throughout, none more memorable than Château de Fonscolombe, a restored château near Aix-en-Provence where the Michelin-level dining made it hard to leave - the sort of stay I’d book for clients who want proper country luxury with the touring done for them. What stayed with me was how naturally the whole trip balanced real luxury with genuine local connection: a good reminder that luxury travel is less about where you stay than how a place makes you feel.

Whether you’re drawn to the exclusivity of Luxury Gold or the polish of Insight Vacations, Abby Pezze can tell you which suits the trip you have in mind, and where in the South of France to point it.