Back from the freeze - to the snow!

Well - what can I say?  Back from an excellent trip to Central Europe accompanying a school group to several feet of snow to clear.

In my absence, the office was cut off by road and by broadband and telephone; so there's much to catch up on.

During the trip, we visited Berlin for both Reich and Cold War elements, Stalag Luft 3 on the very date of the anniversary of the Great Escape, Auschwitz1 - Birkenau and the Kazimierz quarter of Kraków where some of Schindler's List was filmed. 

In Birkenau, the temperature was several degrees below zero, but the wind seemed to be coming from the steppes with nothing to impede it.  It was physically painful just to be there, but the students fully appreciated how it must have been to endure these conditions wearing no more than a pair of pyjamas.

A few days away

I'm travelling with a group from tomorrow, Thursday, until next Tuesday; so might not be able to post very often.

We'll be visiting Berlin and Kraków (why does the weather forecast look so unappealing?).

Of course, any high spots will be reported.

Getting through the airport with a school group

For most of us, an airport is a place we visit / pass through very few times a year.  And when you are responsible for a group of students, the journey from the kerb outside the check-in to actually sitting on the aircraft ready for take-off can be even more daunting than when travelling alone.

There's some step-by-step advice here, which I think will be useful:

Through the airport

RE tours

I rarely mention tours for groups studying RE, but with both the Protestant Reformation and the Holocaust featuring in exam syllabuses, perhaps I should do so.

If you are teaching either of these, then take a look at  Religious history tours for some inspiring ideas.

An extra 10kg of luggage free of charge!

Following my last blog post about luggage allowances, I have been looking into ways of getting more unchecked luggage on board without falling foul of the airlines' policies .

I have found an excellent range of jackets / waistcoats with large pockets capable of carrying even a laptop computer (the largest pocket is 43cm x 20cm).

For your health's sake, it's probably advisable to limit yourself to 10 kg, but as you also have your carry-on bag allowance, you can probably take a total of around 20kg - plenty for a week away (?)

Take a look at   Luggage Busters

Save time and money when flying on tour

Do you really need checked luggage?

If you are taking a group away by air for three or four days, ask whether it is really necessary to pay for luggage checked in the hold of the aircraft.

Not taking such luggage will save you both time and money.

Of course, not having to wait for cases to offloaded at your arrival airport can save the best part of an hour in each direction - but did you know that your suitcase can substantially increase the cost of your travel?

Taking three no-frills airlines as examples, easyJet charge £22 return, Jet2 £25 return and WizzAir £34 return.  Ryanair charge even more.

Of course, if you travel by coach, there are no such extra costs.

Three extra free places on Battlefields tours

Although details of the government's subsidy to secondary schools in the state sector in England is delayed, Culture Trails has made the decision to give three extra free places to any group of 35 or more students travelling on a study trip to the Western Front battlefields throughout the centenary period from summer 2014 to Christmas 2018.

This offer is available to schools in all parts of the United Kingdom.

www.culturetrails.co.uk/history-trails/school-study-tours/world-war-1.htm

Do not read this if you live in the south of Britain

But if you are in the north of England, North Wales or Scotland - it's intended for you.

If you are taking a group on a study trip to Europe, it's a long way to Dover, and it's not necessary to drive those extra miles.

P&O Ferries have an overnight service from Hull to Rotterdam and another from Hull to Zeebrugge.

An early evening departure, buffet dinner, cinema, good night's sleep in comfortable cabins, breakfast, and on the road by nine o'clock.

If you are headed to the battlefields of the Western Front, you can be meeting your guide in Ypres by 10 a.m., fully refreshed and ready for a day in the trenches and museums.

But if you are going further east, you can be in, say, Berlin by afternoon having made a relevant visit on the way.

Bring your school choir to the Western Front

Between 2014 and 2018, we shall be arranging recitals of commemoration for school choirs from the UK in churches and other venues in Flanders and on the Somme.

If you would like to be included, please contact us for more details: music@culturetrails.co.uk  or phone 01691 886161

Given sufficient planning time, we should be able to organise a recital in places of significance for your own local area, and frequently to include a local choir as well, if you wish.

Should your school have links with a school in Germany, they, too, may be included.

New tour itinerary - Third Reich Essentials

It's more than twenty years since I organised my first school study tour "Third Reich Uncovered", visiting Nuremberg, Prague, Auschwitz and Berlin over the course of ten days.

It has proved an immensely successful tour ever since, but I am very conscious of the increasing cost, especially in these straitened times, and have been considering how we might cut the length of the trip while preserving its major educational benefits.

If you are teaching Germany 1933-1945, I hope that an 8-day coach tour might appeal.  It includes Prague's Jewish quarter, Lidice and Theresienstadt, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Berlin.

E-mail hugh@culturetrails.co.uk or call 01691 886161 to discuss this or any other study trip.

Three competing ferry companies, plus Eurotunnel

For the short term at least, there are three ferry companies competing on the short Channel crossing from Dover to Calais.

P&O have been around longest, while DFDS came onto the route after last year's demise of Sea France.

The Eurotunnel operators have taken over three of the Sea France fleet which they now operate under the name of MyFerry Link.

It is possible that the Competition Commission will rule this anti-competitive, and I shall keep you updated, but for the moment, many more daily sailings and more price competition cannot be bad.

From Rallies to Ruins - Nuremberg & Berlin

It's a matter of perspective

In Nuremberg, your pupils can begin to understand how it felt to be a small part of a massive machine

Our study trips to Nuremberg and Berlin help bring out the reality of life in the Third Reich - why ordinary people supported, or at least did not oppose, such a brutal régime.

From the gigantism of the Nuremberg Rally Grounds and the unbuilt Germania to the tranquil lakeside setting of the Wannsee Conference, our local expert guides interpret the sites in a way that helps us understand the workings of the Nazi machine.

In a pattern that will become familiar over the next days, Matt relates it to his own experience: "I've been to rock concerts and I guess it's a similar thing. There's a real vibe. Everyone's there to see the same thing, to do what everyone else does." And, as the guide points out, Matt's reaction is an echo of what the British ambassador felt as he watched one of the rallies. "For two minutes," he recorded, "I became a National Socialist."

You will have the personal attention of our Central Europe expert throughout the planning of your tour and whilst you are away; so you can be sure your pupils will get the most appropriate experience for their studies.  Visits are themed to suit your syllabus.

Central hotels and single rooms for staff

Wherever possible, we use three- and four-star hotels rather than hostels, and accompanying staff have single room accommodation.  Unlike many other school tour operators, we include all visits, guiding and entry fees in the price of your tour.  We are confident that on a like-for-like basis, even with all these pluses, you will find our prices very competitive.

Extend your tour

You might extend your tour and discover the wartime history of Theresienstadt and Prague or of Kraków and Auschwitz.

Whatever your requirements, Culture Trails are experts in school travel so please call 01691 88 61 61 to discuss your plans or e-mail: hugh@culturetrails.co.uk

Take a look at some of our ideas at:

www.culturetrails.co.uk/Nuremberg1.htm

Culture Trails, Travel House, Llwynmawr, Llangollen LL20 7BB

Berlin: 1918-1992

It happened, and it happened here

Twentieth Century History - brought to life in the places it was made

YOU know that Berlin is the place to visit for pupils studying almost any part of

twentieth century German history - Weimar Republic, Reich or Cold War.

WE know Berlin best!

We have been taking school groups there since the days when the Wall was still standing and we know the ins and outs of this magnificent city.

You will have the personal attention of our Berlin and Central Europe expert throughout the planning of your tour and whilst you are away; so you can be sure your pupils will get the most appropriate experience for their studies.  Visits are themed to suit your syllabus.

Central hotels and single rooms for staff

Wherever possible, we use three-star hotels rather than hostels, and accompanying staff have single room accommodation.  Unlike many other school tour operators, we include all visits, guiding and entry fees in the price of your tour.  We are confident that on a like-for-like basis, even with all these pluses, you will find our prices very competitive.

Extend your tour beyond Berlin

You might extend your tour and discover the wartime history of Theresienstadt and Prague or of Kraków and Auschwitz, or you could visit the immense Rally Grounds and the courtroom of the War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremberg.

For Cold War studies, why not add on Leipzig, scene of the anti-government demonstrations through 1989 which culminated in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the East German state, together with a selection of the intra-German frontier fortifications.

Whatever your requirements, Culture Trails are experts in school travel so please call 01691 88 61 61 to discuss your plans or e-mail: hugh@culturetrails.co.uk

Take a look at some of our ideas at:

 www.culturetrails.co.uk/berlin1.htm

Culture Trails, Travel House, Llwynmawr, Llangollen LL20 7BB

Check out our tour ideas

Although in the body of this blog I try to help anybody who is thinking of taking a school tour, I have now started to add a few ideas of tours we can organise - do, please, check out the sidebar to the right of this page page for programmes.

And if there's a destination or curriculum topic for which you'd like suggested tours, just get in touch.