We went with fifty friends on our latest women’s history tour to the City of Light! From a private nighttime tour of Versailles to a luncheon at Veuve Clicquot, through pastries shaped like apples at A. LaCroix patisserie, and an ocean of glorious onion soup, we filled our suitcases with treasures and our hearts with joy.
But perhaps the best souvenirs we all brought home were the lifelong friends we made along the way.
Three times a year a collection of History Chicks listeners embark on a Field Trip with us, this September that adventure was to New York City! Our travel organizer, Laura Hart of Like Minds Travel, put together an itinerary of experiences and places that feature some of our former subjects, this time over a 5-day weekend.
In late April we set off on our first Field Trip of 2023 with a whirlwind tour of Washington, D.C. with 40 of our newest friends. It’s hard to get away for the eight or nine days of our other Field Trips, so what can we see and do in half that time?
The answer: a lot.
We outlined the trip in the episode from the first night to the last final dinner together and gave our fellow travelers a chance to share their impressions, highlights, photos, and lessons that they learned from the trip.
We began with cocktails and a trolly tour of the nation’s capital at night. All the monuments and buildings were lit and sparkling–it was a magical way to see the city as a whole.
On our first full day, we toured the museum and estate of Marjorie Merriweather Post, Hillwood, from the mansion to the gardens and a special visit to the archives. That afternoon we visited the former home and office of another previous subject, Clara Barton’s Missing Soldiers Office, and followed that with afternoon tea at the historic Willard Hotel.
Day three brought us to two Smithsonian Museums: The National Museum of African American History and the National Museum of American History and ended with dinner, dancing, and meeting visiting listeners on a Potomac cruise.
I go to prepare a place for you by Bisa Butler. Read about it HERE (Susan LOVED this piece of art.)
Finally, on day four, we had a “Women That Changed America” walking tour, a trip through the National Portrait Gallery, and on to a private tour and dinner at Mount Vernon, the site we were just talking about on both the Martha Washington and Ona Judge episodes! That is a high point of all these trips: Standing where so many of our former subjects had been during their remarkable lives.
If you would like to join us on Field Trip, there are still (as of May 17, 2023) a few spots for London in September of this year. That trip is almost sold out (Paris is so sold out that the waitlist could fill two more tours) but there are still tickets for the dinner cruise in both London and Paris so head over to Like Minds Traveland take a gander at that itinerary and join us for dinner!
The History Chicks Podcast
Beckett Graham and Susan Vollenweider: Two women. Half the population. Several thousand years of history. About an hour.