Board & Members

Circle of Academic Tour Guides (CATON), a Friendship Network of gifted tour guides.

This is the official web site of the worldwide Circle of Academic Tour Guides.

Men and Women with lively minds and cultural knowledge,

with a background in general History, Art History, Archaeology and/or Architecture.

 

We are a circle of great, accessible, articulate and inspiring scholars, lecturers, men and women with a background as art historians, general historians, social historians and related experts from other disciplines*

*Yes! We have no "mumbling professors" here!

Welcome to this home page of the Circle of Academic Tour Guides (CATON).

 

The Board and Members

• Chairman is Drs Kees Kaldenbach. Kaldenbach, See his 2000 page web site , email kalden@xs4all.nl. Drs Kees Kaldenbach organizes 48 varieties of tours and is specialized in Vermeer, Rembrandt, Vincent van Gogh and much more. A bio text by an editor.


• Vice Chairman is Drs. Michel Didier. Michel Didier, his email mdidier@tijdruimte.nl. Tijdruimte.nl He is specialized in Art History and Architecture Courses, Lectures - and in guiding groups.


====== Members in HOLLAND include these art specialists : ========

Dr. Llewellyn Bogaers, email info@levendverledennu.nl site www.levendverledennu.nl. Promotion of cultural history focusing on late mediaeval Utrecht and church history. Lectures. Guided tours. Author of books.

Jan Maarten Dalmeijer. Modern architecture and general history in Utrecht. Architectuurgids / Architectonisch vormgever / docent Architectonische vormgeving. Page in Dutch only.

Dr. Stefan Elevelt, http://www.amsterdamtourguide.nl archeologist, tour organiser for fine arts architecture and archaeology in Amsterdam and Rome.

Drs. Jip Meijer, http://www.durendale.nl Military Historic travels. Battlefield tours to Ieper, Verdun, Normandy etc. Email info@durendale.nl

Dr. Julia Gerasimova, email julia.gerasimova.nl@gmail.com for RUSSIAN speaking groups coming to Holland. Web site http://weekendinamsterdam.tourister.ru Also speaks English and Dutch. University Art History education in St Petersburg, Doctoral thesis in Amsterdam VU. Phone +31627299965.

 

Members in FRANCE:

Three very gifted female tour guides, including ms. Eglantine de Boissieu, at Hidden Paris Walking Tours, email hiddenpariswalkingtours@gmail.com.

Irene Bosvy in Frenchadventures.com, email info@frenchadventures.com, stating in 2015: "All our guides are licensed with university degree art, architecture, history , blue badge guides , English speaking, High school diploma + 5 years university studies minimum."

Also successful: the agency Parismuse, web site http://parismuse.com, email info@parismuse.com

 

Members in GERMANY / DEUTSCHLAND + AUSTRIA Mitteleuropa/Habsburg

Gabriel Fawcett, MA., email mail@gabrielfawcett.com. Holds an MA from Oxford University in Modern History; 15 years of teaching on site in art galleries and the great cityscapes of northern and central Europe (my specialities are Germany, and the Mitteleuropa/Habsburg Empire world, which spans Amsterdam and Poland, as well as Prague and Vienna-Budapest). I am a particularly good fit with 'culture vulture types' and travelling schools and universities.

Dr. des. Katharina Schmidle email, Specialist in Art, Museums, Castles, Culture in and around Munich / München, see www.artattendance.com

Dr. Brigitte Timmermann, Vienna Walks OG, Travel-Guiding-Lecturing Services, Touristische Dienstleistungen. Kunst & Kulturvermittlung. Email brigitte@viennawalks.com, http://www.viennawalks.com.

 

Members in ITALY

Dr. Stefan Elevelt, http://www.amsterdamtourguide.nl archeologist, tour organiser for fine arts architecture and archaeology in Rome.

Rocky Ruggiero,
Cultural Programs for the Arts in Florence, www.rockyruggiero.com, info@rockyruggiero.com
Art Historian at Kent St. University, Boston College and Syracuse University in Florence; Advisory board member of Friends of Florence since 1998; History Channel Expert Witness: Engineering an Empire: Da Vinci's World, 2007; Museum Secrets: The Uffizi Gallery, 2013; PBS Nova: Cathedral Mystery, 2014.

Giulia Barnardini, tour guide and actress, goolarome@yahoo.com. Art history professor at U of Colorado during the academic year and then returns to Italy in the summer.

 

Members in SPAIN

Gerardo Rappazzo Amura, gerardorappazzo@yahoo.com  91.649.4898  619.267.008
Since 1992, Gerardo Rappazzo works as Tour Manager and Tourist Guide all around the world. Qualifications in Education, Psychology, Art and History. Mr. Rappazzo is a current member of the Executive Committee of the Spanish Confederation of Tourist Guides Associations (CEFAPIT), the Executive Committee of Madrid Tourist Guides Association (APIT), and Spanish spokesman to the European Federation of Tourist Guides (FEG). Nowadays, he is involved in the development of educational programs for Tourist Guides.


Barcelona: Spanish Trails – Andrew (Wilson?)– Dali Tour: http://spanish-trails.com/about-spanish-trails/, info@spanish-trails.com (Cadaqués & All Things Dalí tour)
 

Francesc Garcia, Barcelona365, (Tour of Miro Museum and Picasso museum): http://www.barcelona365.es/
 

 

Members in PORTUGAL

Lisbon, Portugal. Dra. Rita Azevedo, art historian
+351 926 524 029
ritaportazevedo@gmail.com

 

Members in GREECE

Evangelos Karagiannis, art historian , authorized tourist guide in Greece. www.boreas-travel.gr), incoming cultural and nature-related tour operator, based on Thessaloniki, Greece.

 

Members in BELGIUM

Ghent:

Ghent-Authentic with local guides, info@ghent-authentic.com

 

Members in the USA

 

New York City:

Adventures in Art, with Karen Stone Talwar, karen@adventuresinart.com, http://www.adventuresinart.com

ArtSmart, https://www.artsmart.com/about/meet-our-guides/

ArtMuse http://www.artmuseny.com/nyc/private-tours/

Big Onion, info@bigonion.com

Insideouttours, many themes, with Academic Guides. info@insideouttours.com

Municipal Arts Society MAS, specializing in architecture, info@mas.org

Wall Street Walks, especially on finance district, tours@WallStreetWalks.com

Shady Ladies, uncovering the Sexy Secrets in Art and History.

Woolworth Tours, only for the Woolworth Building!, Info@WoolworthTours.com

Professor Andrew Lear, tours in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, art with Gay themes. A leading scholar on the history of sexuality, with a B.A. from Harvard and a Ph.D. from UCL.,

 

Boston, Mass:

Dr Curt di Camillo at www.DiCamilloCompanion.com, email curt@DiCamilloCompanion.com

Professor Andrew Lear, tours in the Boston Museum of Fine Art, art with Gay themes

 

Chicago, Ill.

Cynthia Noble, Private art tours in Chicago and around the world, www.noblearttours.com, email cynthia@noblearttours.com

 

New members welcome!

 

 

Members in RUSSIA (incoming to Holland)

Dr. Julia Gerasimova, email julia.gerasimova.nl@gmail.com for RUSSIAN speaking groups coming to Holland. Also speaks English and Dutch. University Art History education in St Petersburg, Doctoral thesis in Amsterdam VU. Phone 0627299965.

 

Members in AUSTRIA

New members welcome!

 

Members in INDIA (on an academic + research level)


Nimit Chowdhary, nimitchowdhary@gmail.com, is a Professor with Indian Institute of Tourism and TravelManagement (IITTM), Gwalior. See his Handbook for tour guides. He is a prolific researcher and writer.  He has a network in many countries where he regularly travels for teaching and research assignments.

Monika Prakash, monika.prakash@iittmnoida.ac.in. She is Head of IITTM-Noida and Chairperson of the PhD programme. Her research is focused on individual and organisational behaviour, HRM and Medical tourism.

Dr. Shailja Sharma, Assistant Professor, sky2shailja@gmail.com  , Head of IITTM-Noida and Chairperson of the PhD programme. Her research is focused on individual and organisational behaviour, HRM and Medical tourism.

Ramesh C. Devrath, Assistant Professor, rameshdevrath@gmail.com, Co- Chairman of PGDM (International Business) at IITTM, Gwalior. His research is focused on Medical tourism, Entrepreneurship and Rural Tourism.

 

Keep yourself well informed: receive a free online newsletter and web page: http://artdaily.com

And/or watch: History Channel.

 

July 2013: Ricardo N and his wife Francis S. live in New York City and are full-time NYC art aficianados, travelling the world and visiting most of the fine art centers in Europe.

In June-July 2013 they toured for three full days with Drs Kees Kaldenbach.

Ricardo: "I would rate you as terrific. It is a great treat being with you - You saved my life in showing me the Mauritshuis collection - I thought it was completely closed!"

Francis N.: "Kees is outstanding... he has a very rare gift among any the great number of professional tour guide we met in our lifetime... in presenting a deep and very specific art history knowledge, and in combining this with passion and and easy going presentation.
My husband and I have spent our lives in the art world of NYC and the West Coast. We have rarely met such a wonderful guide. Kees is an outstanding fountain of visual knowledge and historic insight. He truly is top class within the field of Western art history!"

 

 

Members of the Circle of Academic Tour Guides (CATON) can meet their clients for a personalized guided tour of art museums and historic centers. During these tours we express our fascination and our enthusiasm for history.

Back to the CATON welcome page.

The circle was founded unofficially on April 13, 1998, and has opened its public web site in 2008, ten years later. Our primary aim is to "Promote and stimulate the highest quality in academic level tour guide activity." In practice, the Circle strives to enhance the professional quality and the communicative skills of tour guides, giving advice on didactic matters and in communication techniques, marketing skills.

We consider a great tour guide a person who is a deeply knowledgeable expert in the field of history, art history, archaeology, architecture, or another field of related expertise, and who is able to express this knowledge in an articulate, multi-faceted, enticing, exhilaring and fun way. In the day-to-day work our tour guides express both a lust for life and an enthusiasm for all of these artistic fields of human endeavour.

Enjoy yourself and learn about history while strolling and discussing the country's history, art and culture. In doing so, we may touch many bases - spanning not only fine art and architecture but also the city's history and current social issues.

 

 

Go to the introduction page.

 

 

About Chairman, Drs. Kees Kaldenbach:

Read a biography.

Drs. Kees Kaldenbach has been featured in television and radio documentaries, including BBC2 TV, NTV Japan, Danish TV and Radio Netherlands World Service. In July 2004 he was interviewed for leading Japanese newspapers. In 2004 and 2005 he acted in an advisory role to additional BBC teams. Kaldenbach has written extensively on Vermeer and 17th century Delft, on Rembrandt, Vincent van Gogh and on other art history topics.

Drs. Kees Kaldenbach is your private "scholar-lecturer on culture tours".

Further information is available on his encyclopedic web site: www.johannesvermeer.info

 

Contact information:

Drs. Kees Kaldenbach , kalden@xs4all.nl

Haarlemmermeerstraat 83 hs

1058 JS Amsterdam

The Netherlands

telephone 020 - 669 8119 (from abroad NL +20 - 669 8119)

cell phone 06 - 2868 9775 (from abroad NL +6 - 2868 9775)

Tour menu.

Reaction, questions? Read client testimonials.

Open seven days a week.

Member of the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce (Kamer van Koophandel).

Email responses and bookings to art historian Drs. Kees Kaldenbach.

This page forms part of the 2000+ item Vermeer web site at http://kalden.home.xs4all.nl/

Launched 13 July 2015. Update 30 October 2016.