One of the most enjoyable aspects of this trip has been the mutable itinerary. The lead teacher was constantly on the lookout for opportunities to add experiences to our itinerary, even if it meant occasionally some drastic adjustments to the schedule. Some of these experiences have been the most memorable on the trip: the boat tour in Paris and ( Read more... )

Today's entry comes in the form of a series of vignettes and thoughts ( Read more... )

The monastery of Santa Maria de Montserrat is an impressive site in so many ways. The monastery is located probably close to 1km above the valley floor, most of the way up the Montserrat peak. It is built on the side of the mountain face that looks out upon the whole valley, and despite the other hills around it you can see for miles. The monastery ( Read more... )

Today's post is going to be relatively short, because as I start this, we're five hours away from our wake-up. Tomorrow we cross the border into Spain, and spend most of the day on the bus, travelling first to Montserrat and its famous monastery, and finally to Barcelona ( Read more... )

After a little research and a little guesswork, the organizers of the tour managed to add a late-afternoon activity into today's schedule, and despite some delays and some more rain, we managed to get to everything pretty much right on time. The sunniest and clearest part of the day was, thankfully, during our self-guided tour of the Pont du Gard, ( Read more... )

Although today was almost as rainy as yesterday, Avignon somehow didn't suffer for it like Nice did. The walled inner city is the epitome of the quaint old Europe that I much prefer to resort-type places. I happily soaked in the cobblestone streets named after occupations, the unnecessarily large gothic stone palace that housed two centuries of ( Read more... )

Today was a such a stark contrast from yesterday. It involved a lot of sitting and looking and listening, and a lot less walking, and a lot less sightseeing, and a lot more free time, than any day yet. There were two highlights of the day; the first was a trip on the TGV, the world's second-fastest wheeled train - and it was fast, making the 900+km ( Read more... )

I say Day 1 & 2 because we didn't really get to sleep in between. The flight was overnight (a little more than planned, due to a precipitation delay and a missed connection in Amsterdam), and immediately upon landing in Paris we embarked on a whirlwind coach tour of the city. Because we'd been sitting for many hours already, the guides took every ( Read more... )

As my laptop charges, I'm sitting here on the floor of the departure lounge at Pearson, keeping it company, or rather, making sure no one stuffs it with cocaine while I'm looking the other way. This being a non-performance trip, the luggage check and security screening were a relative breeze, and we got 56 kids and 5 chaperones through to the gate ( Read more... )