Ugh.

I decided to spend today whomping up an itinerary and cost estimate for my week-long jaunt to Verdun, the Somme, and Ypres.

Seeing Verdun and the Somme is looking unfeasible at best. Every tour of Verdun and the Somme I've read today says that a car is necessary for a battlefield tour. Getting to Verdun apparently requires taking a slow train from Paris to Verdun with a switch at Chalon. This would get me to the city, but not to the battlefield, and getting a taxi to haul me hither and yon over the place would be prohibitively expensive. Vimy Ridge and the Somme both require cars as well, and I won't be twenty-one by the time of my week off. Ypres is looking like the only battlefield I'm going to be able to see.

I guess I'll have to maybe fly somewhere else, like Rome, on my week off. I'm very disappointed to say the least.