Program Reviews

My child had an absolutely amazing time. She loved every minute of it. She made wonderful enduring friendships. Abbey Road did an amazing job to say the least! We are and forever be eternally grateful for the incredible opportunity you helped make possible for Natalie this summer! When I think about the opportunities she had on this trip, my heart bursts with gratitude!

I attended the Abbey Road program in Spain the summer before my senior year. It was easily one of the most impactful and transformative experiences I have had. Not only did I make friends that I still keep in touch with, (almost 7 years later!) it helped me focus my studies once in college. I graduated with a double major in Spanish and part of what kept my going in my studies was the experience I had with Abbey Road. Seeing the importance of being bilingual and various cultures I could experience propelled me to complete more than the minimum language requirements while in college. Additionally, my plan after graduation was to move to Spain and teach English. Although this didn't work out because of the economy issues, Abbey Road opened my eyes to alternative careers after graduation.

Abbey Road was always extremely well-organized and perfectly balanced "fun time" with studies. I always felt safe and taken care of and truly experienced the Spanish culture. I would recommend Abbey Road whole heartedly to any high school student who wants to travel, learn about other cultures, and make great friends.

I chose Aix because I just thought it was a great way to improve my French and I loved it. We had French dinners, with a great food where we would only speak French. There were a lot of activities during the week. We had French movie night, Fashion Show, French Conversations classes, cooking evenings... Our residence was fantastic. My room had two floors. We had a huge living room and kitchen. Our apartment was usually the one chosen for cooking nights because it was so big. My roommate ended up becoming one of my dest friends. We still keep in touch.
Aix was like a mini Paris, without all the tourists. It was perfect.
It was such a small town and I felt like everyone was more of a family and people actually knew each other.
On the weekend we would have excursions and we get to take a break from classes.
The classes actually challenged you. I liked that our teacher taught us French slang so we could communicated with the people of Aix without sounding too professional and a little bit more colloquial. Our teacher was a native French and could actually teach us terms not just from a textbook.

I loved studying in florence with Abbey Road! I had visited Florence before on vacation with my family, but this is a totally different experience. I didn't feel like a tourist, the staff did a really good job making us feel like we were student residents and showed us a lot of really amazing restaurants and tiny piazzas that mostly locals like to hang out in. My Italian really improved and I loved how the classes took us out to practice in real situations in the city, like buying food at the market. The art classes were awesome. I loved sketching in the museums. I made amazing friends that I will keep in contact with forever, and the residence where we lived was AMAZING!!! It felt like I was actually back in the Renaissance.

I had the best time ever in Florence during the program, it was my first time in Italy, and to see so much luminous paintings from the Renaissance got me dizzy in joy. Florence is such an elegant and sophisticated city. We had a great dinner near the ponte vecchio at night and went up the duomo, it is so beautiful you can feel the light of the great minds of the XVI century. The Offices gallery was definetly my favorite, to see raphael, da vinci, botticelli and michelangelo next to each other, i would have spent weeks sitting in front of those paintings. It has been a real immersion into art, we were staying in a Palazo in the city center with frescoes on the ceiling. I met some other students from my area and we kept in touch after the summer. We had 4 days in Rome when the program started, it was great, but Florence holds a special place in my heart :)