I've never been much for the guided tour.  I think I've taken my orchestra students on too many field trips where we all strained to hear the guide talk about Mozart's time in Salzburg or the kids were rushed along through CNN and discouraged from asking questions.  Now when I'm on my own, I usually prefer to explore at my own pace and hope I glean enough information by reading everything and taking my time.

But now I have a slight dilemma.  My husband and I will be traveling to Paris over the winter holidays, and although the weather will probably be semi-crummy, we would love to see Normandy and the D-Day beaches.  The catch is this:  We love history and think this is an important visit, so we'd like to learn as much as possible.  But after watching a teenager do her hair in the reflection of the Vietnam War Memorial in D.C. and seeing young couples pose smiling in front of Ground Zero, I realize we might have trouble finding a tour group that suits us. 

We've never been to Europe together and we want this trip to be terrific, which for us means we see a lot, we learn a lot, we eat a lot, and we're annoyed as little as possible.  We're both flexible--delays, bad weather, and unexpected snafus are fine--as it goes with the territory when you're traveling. But Normandy deserves the utmost respect and I'm having trouble researching this one from afar.  I hope after I do a bit more homework I book a trip that we're both comfortable with.