Background information
At the Annual General Meeting on March 20th/10, I was please to present the Proposed Tour to Southern France 2012 to the club and received overwhelming support to proceed with the planning of the next official EBB TIDE RFC Tour. We have now coined the Theme "The End of Time Tour" based on the Mayan calendar. (Thanks Rick (Kyle) for brilliant idea). The tour as proposed is based on Rick Williams his personal knowledge of the area and has so many possibilities to be an incredible time similar to our Chile, Japan, and New Zealand tours. (Thanks Rick for mapping out this tour). This tour will celebrate our 40th anniversary as a club and will become one of the planned events for the club for that year.
Tour Itinerary
The tour is planned as a 22 day Spring tour to Toulouse (3 nights stay) continuing to Albi, (3 nights stay) and Carcasonne (3 nights stay), a 7 day Midi Canal boat tour to Narbonne (4 nights) before returning to Toulouse for the return flight to home through Paris. The tour has been reviewed by our Travel Agent and is estimated at $3500 / person, which is now the budget we will endeavor to maintain. We are planning at most 4 games of rugby against teams of similar ages as well; if possible take in some local games. Southern France has a strong rugby culture so we should able to drum up some interest. As I mentioned there is a 7-day canal tour based on 8 people / boat, so you can imagine a 6 -7 boat raiding party descending on some unsuspecting townships. It also provides the "Commander " an opportunity to have his own squadron to lead. This component allows us to minimize our costs and stretch out the tour, and what a great way to see the countryside. There will be many opportunities for individual exploring and side trips of the surrounding areas as we are planning to stay at least 3 - 4 days in each city along the way.
On the return flight we will have to depart through Paris, so if any one wishes to extend their vacation there will be opportunity to deviate from the planned tour. I will be working out those details and will advise everyone at a later date. We will only open the tour up to other clubs after we have exhausted our club and preferred friends’ lists in consultation with club executive and tour committee. This tour will also provide us the opportunity to recruit some new blood to the club. Attached are links to web sites of the cities, and the areas we will travel through, Midi Canal tour, and general tour information. Planned Itinerary, and budget information for your review.
Cities:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toulouse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcassonne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narbonne
Boat Cruise:
The Midi-Robine Cruise itinerary is the proposed canal tour. See websites below for information:
http://www.leboat.com/
http://www.leboat.com/cruising-companion/region/15
