FRANCE CUSTOM TOURS - Key Persons
Anthony Bay is English by birth (and bilingual in French), and started work as a freelance photographer in London followed by a 6 year stint as a Diplomat with the British Foreign Office. He entered the travel industry as a founding Director of deluxe travel company Abercrombie and Kent Europe with whom he worked for 22 years designing product for the American market into Europe, and also guided 3 or 4 of their most prestigious groups per year (and also five Abercrombie and Kent "Around the World by Private Jet" tours)
Having been inspired by my French teacher at Ursuline Academy in Wilmington, Delaware, my first trip to France was as an exchange student with a French family living in Paris. I fell in love with France. After three months of living in the Latin Quarter on the Boulevard St Germain, life was never to be the same. My father persuaded me to return to the United States to complete my education. So armed with my degree in International Business and French, I returned to France to be part of the 1992 opening hospitality crew of Euro Disney. After Disney I escorted American students on tours throughout Europe and then joined Insight Tours, an adult coach tour service. After ten years as a European tour leader, living for a while in Florence, Venice and Padua studying Italian, I returned to Paris where I met my husband. We were married in the beautiful Bayeux Cathedral in Normandy where we set up our family home and where we have two rental cottage ("gîtes") close to the D-Day Landing beaches. We are now enjoying life in the French countryside, raising our two children.
I am English, and a graduate in History from Oxford University. Most of my professional life was spent in book publishing. My wife, Susan and I decided to move to Normandy in 2003, and have made our home in the heart of the countryside, not far from the historic town of Bayeux. We had visited the region on our first vacation together in 1968, and returned there may times, coming to love the history, architecture, cuisine, people and landscape of this part of France. Since settling in Normandy, I have pursued my long-standing interest in the Allied Invasion of France during June, 1944 and the subsequent battles of that campaign. I specialize in giving tours to veterans and their families, to serving soldiers of the USA and Great Britain, and to all those interested in the liberation of France. I also conduct tours of the Battle of the Bulge (the Ardennes), Operation Market Garden (Arnhem and Nijmegen ), and Monte Cassino in Italy.