Novacadie Tours - 2013 Tour to France

We visited the places of most significant meaning for the descendants of many pioneers of a great culture. in America..
We travelled the footsteps of these men, women and children who chose to leave everything behind and turn their heart west-wise, to New France in the seventeenth and eighteenth century!

Their landfall in the New World was Acadie!

123 years of self sufficiency against all odds, even reaching a ''Golden Age'' of material and spiritual accomplishment against super powers who never quite grasped the essence of their inner visions as a strong, inspired and loving community. The cruel deportation (1755-64) failed to break this unique colony apart but managed to scater several thousands of them all over, I guess you know the gist of the Story... 257 years later, the children of Acadie are found within 3 continents. Their unnamable strength and the love for this ''extended Family'' still very much alive all over has surely been the product of the original characters they inherited from the start.

It is this very land of origins that calls us now, as Novacadie proposes to walk within the villages where many were born, such as LaChaussée, Martaizé, LaRochelle in Poitou-Charentes, the churches where they prayed before leaving, the harbors that saw them leave for a new world where dignity awaited them, but also, the regions where many were forced to return during and after the Deportation. Such regions as Saint-Malo, Nantes and Belle Ïle-en-Mer in Brittany, Archigny, la ''Ligne Acadienne'' and others, we will experience, eyes and heart what they saw and felt..but, with all the comfort we've come to expect of the 21st century..not to worry.

This tour experience is likely to be for many of you, the fruition of years of historical and genealogical research. If not of your own Family heritage, of the very essence of Acadie itself. But, as noble as it may be, one does not go to France just with one focus in mind, this country needs no fabricated and artificial reasons to draw us, let's face it

So, we say: ''Yes! to the finest medieval and Renaissance castles and cathedrals in the world!
-Yes! to some of the finest cultural and natural wonders on earth!
-Yes! to the Normandy coast where our grand fathers went to liberate Europe and the world from the Nazi!

-Yes! to this huge capital of sympathy and deeply felt brotherly love France has for us north Americans!
-Yes! to the undescribable pleasure of the best food and wine to men!
-Yes! to Paris la grande!
-Yes!

Oui!

Please enjoy these video clips from various parts of the 2013 Tour of France.....

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The tour began in Paris with our first night of 14 which will be spent near the Roissy Charles de Gaulle Airport September 5th..

The tour ended at same hotel September 19th in the morning!

Briefly, we traveled to the famous Loire Valley region -visit 2 of the most prestigious castles in the world! Chenonceau and Léonardo da Vinci's Clos Luçé near Amboise- Night spent in Orléans on the 6th.

-Then to Loudun, in the province of Poitou- 2 nights 7 and 8th spent in Chinon -from where we will immerse ourselves in the land of origin of many founding fathers of New France's Acadie. A few places on the program: Châtellerault, LaChaussée, Martaizé and Archigny.

-Then to LaRochelle in Charentes Maritimes for 2 nights-9th + 10th, allowing us to fully enjoy the famous port from which so many have left the old to come to the ''new world''. Brouage is also in the plans, birthplace of illustrous Samuel de Champlain.

-Then to Nantes, Brittany on the 11th from which approx. 1600 deportees opted to re-embark for America and, eventually re-unite with parents and friends which all had been deported from Nova Scotia's Acadie some 30 years earlier!

-Off to Belle Ïle-en-Mer by ferry for a full day of superbly scenic and Acadian culture-rich experience on the 13th, while we are stationed in Quiberon, 12th and 13th.

-The 14th and 15th are spent in no less superb Saint-Malo...On our way there the visit at World Heritage site of Mont Saint Michel

-Then into Normandy to enjoy the touching sites of the ''Debarquements'' at the terms of the 2nd World War at Omaha Beach and Colleville American Cemetery namely..
Night in St-Aubin-sur-Mer the 16th.

-Honfleur in the famous Calvados region of France's Normandy from which so many great explorers have left for America in the 16-17th century! Champlain being one of them!.

-The tour of these north-western provinces will assuredly be completed by a two-day 17th +18th stay in Paris. Some free time and a comprehensive guided boat and motor coach tours--in 2 parts of this incredible city, Ville Lumière!