After a successful launch (when following the International Geography Championships, 82 students, parents, family members, and friends joined 12 IAC staff for a week-long tour from Vienna to Berlin), IAC Journeys returns for Summer 2025 with two amazing trips to explore France! We’re presenting a 3-day pre-tour of the highlights of Normandy and Brittany: two of France’s most historic and picturesque regions. Then, after the Olympiad concludes, we’ll take a full week to explore the South of France with stops in Lyon, Cannes, Nice, and many other beautiful cities and sites along the way. We hope that you will consider joining us for these two unique journeys that are specifically designed with our students and their families in mind.
Please note that from November-February, we will periodically be in France scouting hotels, bus companies, sites, and other aspects of these trips. The summaries below are initial draft itineraries and will likely change somewhat by the time we open registration. Registration is now open for the Post-Tour, and will open in February for the Pre-Tour. Space is limited: we’re putting an initial cap of 190 participants on the pre-trip, and 130 participants on the post-trip (not including our staff). Costs will be announced when registration opens. For further information on both tours, click on the links below. For questions, please email tour leader and IAC Executive Director, David Madden directly at david@iacompetitions.com.
Also note that these are family tours. Participants do not need to be otherwise taking part in the Olympiad or have any prior experience with International Academic Competitions. However, you must have a child 18 years old or younger who is also coming along on the tour to take part in it, as these tours are specifically designed for families with children who are interested in the geography, history, and culture of France. Students coming unaccompanied to the Olympiad are unfortunately not allowed to participate on the tours.
Pre-Trip to Normandy and Brittany Details
We’ll depart Paris by bus early on July 16 to arrive mid-morning to arrive at Claude Monet’s Giverny. Giverny was home to Monet in his productive later years and was where he found inspiration for his Water Lilies series. The beautiful gardens and galleries will be an enchanting way to begin before we continue on to the cathedral city of Rouen for lunch. After admiring the Gothic cathedral (also made famous by Monet), we’ll then depart for the first of the D-Day sites we’ll see, the Pegasus Bridge and Museum. Made famous by British paratroopers as one of their first objectives after landing, we’ll then head to Caen for dinner. Participants can select an optional visit to Juno Beach (where Canadian forces landed) or Sword Beach (one of two where the British did) if they’re interested.
On day two, we’ll start after breakfast at the Caen Memorial Museum, where the full story of Operation Overlord and the Normandy campaign is told. You’ll even get a chance to tour the bunker fortress from which the German generals commanded their troops. Then we’ll take a trip back in time almost a millennium to 1066 with a stop in Bayeux to view the incomparable Bayeux Tapestry. Telling a story of another successful cross-Channel invasion, the Tapestry is a historic artifact like no other, as it depicts the Norman Conquest of England: originally for William the Conqueror’s new subjects, and now for you. After lunch in Bayeux, we’ll continue to nearby Omaha Beach, the bloodiest landing site, where American forces encountered fierce resistance. We’ll then continue to the Normandy American Cemetery to pay our respects to the thousands of fallen soldiers who fought to free Europe from Nazi tyranny. Our last D-Day site will be Pointe de Hoc, where Rangers led the way up the cliffs and where President Reagan gave a stirring address at commemoration ceremonies forty years later. Then, a two-hour bus ride (we’ll play some practice questions on the buzzers along the way) will bring us to one of the icons of France: Mont Saint-Michel. This gorgeous abbey rises out of the ocean where Normandy and Brittany meet, and is spectacular in the evening, as the sun begins to set. We’ll have a chance to get dinner there and take some time to enjoy the view before heading to a nearby hotel for the evening.
We’ll begin our final day by heading to Saint Malo in Brittany. Famous for being the lair of the corsair pirates, today Saint Malo is a charming seaport. We’ll have a chance to walk around and explore the city, and then have lunch. We highly recommend you try the most famous contribution of the Bretons to French gastronomie: the delicious crêpes you’ll find all over the city! Then it’s off to Rennes, the Breton capital, for an hour at the Brittany Museum, where you’ll learn about the unique Celtic heritage of France’s wildest region that juts out into the Atlantic. Finally, we’ll break out the buzzers on the bus for a small tournament on French history, geography, and culture for students and interested adults alike on the long trip back to Paris. We’ll break it up with a stop for dinner in the cathedral city of Chartres, and then have an after-dinner picture quiz on the bus back where you can test your memories of the trip. We’ll plan to arrive in Paris around 10pm at the end of a very full and fruitful 3 days. Luckily, there’s no need to wake up early the next day. Check-in will run throughout the day on the 19th at the host school, and you are free to sleep in and then explore Paris at your leisure.