Page Text: About Us
About Us
For more than 38 years our family have endeavored to create memorable experiences for opera lovers to hear world’s finest singers perform in opulent European national theaters and to see spectacular sights in India.
Right away the weariness of your overnight flight disappears. Soon you see several people nearby gathered in a group carrying on a lively conversation. You start introducing yourself and talking to them to find out that many of them had been on European Opera Tours before. They are whom we call members of the H.A.T. Tour family.
Aspee was born and educated in Bombay, India with degrees in mathematics and civil engineering. A year later, he sailed for Europe and worked for two years in Paris, where he saw his first opera with Boris Christoff singing the part of Boris Godunov. Since then he has seen scores of other operas in several venues around the globe.
Grethe’s musical talents as a soprano were developed singing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake City. She was born in Denmark. Upon her return to Denmark she met the owner of the tour company Alumni Flights Abroad from White Plains, NY. This company ran tours for American Ivy League universities. She worked with them for ten years conducting tours and later on as Vice-President of the company in charge of training tour managers and guides around the world.
In the meanwhile Aspee immigrated to the United States to work in New York, a mecca for opera lovers. A few years later, he met a developer of properties in Florida. There he started his practice of architecture, engineering and construction, specializing in building hospitals. In 1976 he sold the last one, to the Humana chain and decided to take life easy from then on.
In 1977 he flew around the world in 90 days visiting many countries, mostly in the southern hemisphere and then up north along the east coast of Africa. In Luxor, Egypt his eyes set on Grethe who was there to train a tour manager for A.F.A. The rest is history.
We look forward to having you become a member of the H.A.T. Tour family.
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