London, Normandy, the Loire Valley and Paris

This ten-day itinerary traces two countries and four distinct landscapes — from the Thames to the Normandy coast, from the château country of the Loire to the boulevards of Paris — giving students a rare chance to read European history in sequence rather than snapshot. The crossing from London to Caen on Day 4, with dinner aboard the ferry, marks the literal and figurative pivot of the tour: one moment you're in Britain, and the next you're arriving on the same coastline where the Second World War turned. That crossing alone tends to be the moment groups talk about for years afterward.