Valladolid has some very pretty parts such as the old university, but mainly it fits into the pattern of most small western cities with pedestrianised shopping areas in the middle surrounded by extensive residential and commercial suburbs. I stayed with a family in 'Sun Park', a new development next to an out-of town shopping centre. Iniake, the son and a rising star of third division football, unfortunately broke his leg while we were there so was unable to show us around but he was always up for a game of Nintendo or a chat about Spanish life. He insisted once, between his fantastically unfunny jokes, that he could walk into town in 45 minutes - I preferred to take the bus.
Most days we had classes at a language school in the centre of the city, taught by the admirably patient Ani. The school also organised excursions every other day. A visit to El Escorial (Felipe II's enormous country palace) one morning and El Valle de los Caidos (Franco's cathedral) in the afternoon demonstrated in one day Spain's passionate need for splendour and its more macabre side. Other trips to Salamanca (known as the 'Oxford of Spain' but more ornate) and the historic village of Tordesillas led up to what many saw as the highlight of the trip: an afternoon's visit to a bodega. Whilst some of our guide's more technical observations on the very subtle process of wine-making were hard to understand, the spirit of the place was not lost on us. Treat your grapes as you would have them treat you and all will be well.
A day after this the trip was over; in two days we were back at School. It had been an eventful and happy ten days - enough work to keep the teachers happy, enough fun for it to have felt like a holiday.
Howard Gooding (Dryden's)
The party consisted of two members of staff, C D Riches and Claudia Harrison, and about twenty boys and two girls, mainly in the Sixth Form and Upper Shell. We were staying at the Mountain Green Condominiums, a few minutes walk away from the 'Base Lodge' where the ski lifts started. The rooms were more like small apartments, sleeping around four people, with a TV, kitchen area and balcony. The Mountain Green complex included a restaurant where we ate breakfast (with plenty of local maple syrup) and dinner. There was also a games arcade where CD and Claudia Harrison battled it out over the air hockey table and a health centre with volleyball and swimming. In the evenings we watched videos or played volleyball, going out one night to a disco and another tenpin bowling.
The skiing was divided up into morning lessons with our instructor, Al, who was from 'London, England' as his badge told us and, even worse, an avid supporter of Arsenal. In the afternoon we were free to go off in groups and ski where we liked. The skiing was good even though many of the runs were closed due to lack of snow. In the afternoons we did some of the hardest double black runs and the fusion zones - large areas of the mountain side where you pick your own route down through the trees. The mountains are quite low so all the skiing is below the tree line with wide cleared trails. The afternoon of the last day was probably the best as it poured with rain and skiing some steep runs in warm rain was a great feeling.
Edward Hill (Liddell's)
Next day came real culture. After visiting the Acropolis and standing in the Agora, where Socrates and Plato must have once stood and debated, I wondered whether we had had the highlights of the tour on the first day. But no - each day that lay ahead held unexpected and often dramatic delights. There were the religious sanctuaries - Olympia in its shady glades, Delphi clinging to its mountainside and - my favourite - the small and intimate Amphiareon. There were small glimpses into a past world, such as the trireme slipway at Sounion - no bigger that an inshore lifeboat slipway at home. There was also the delight of scrambling up a hillside and finding shards of ancient pottery lying scattered around - this was so absorbing that the majority of us got hopelessly lost on the way down!
As well as Classical Greece we saw the almost mythical Mycenean Greece. We followed in Schliemann's footsteps populating Mycenae with characters from Homer, we sat i
n Nestor's cave and imagined Odysseus's son passing by in search of his father. The tour wasn't restricted to the ancient history of Greece, for all around us were the obvious signs of a later and perhaps more turbulent history: castles of Frankish, Venetian and Turkish occupations. After visiting the Castle of Karytena we were unexpectedly invited to visit the village's l3th century Byzantine church - the frescos were tired and faded, but our host's folk memories of midnight services during Turkish occupation were vivid and moving.
The holiday wasn't all culture - there was also time to build impressive fortifications of our own in the sands at Tolon, to play football and skim stones into the sea.
We were also aware of history being made; while we had seen images from Albania on the television, we saw for ourselves an Albanian freight ship waiting in Navarino Bay to disgorge its cargo of refugees.
It would have been hard to engineer a more appropriate ending to the trip and it encapsulated all that I had expected of a Classics trip from Westminster - Saul Lipetz declaiming an ode of Horace in the theatre at Epidaurus.
And finally, if you are wondering about the title, well for that and much more I am indebted to my Classical colleagues, Charles Low and Jonathan Katz - it is the Ancient Greek version of 'coals to Newcastle'.
Sharon Newman