28 September – 17 October 2024
Mrs Sally Hannah, Head of Drama and Mme Kerry Lennon, Director of Languages
The French Study Tour 2024 started with two weeks at the Ateliers FL (French Language school) in Biarritz and finished with five days in Paris during the September-October holidays. The students who participated were Anna Boag, Zanna Collins, Alex Frith, Alice Gilder, Chloe Herbert, Claudia Maple-Brown, Emme Powell, Tallulah Reid and Skye Spong.
Accompanying staff were Mrs Sally Hannah, Mr Greg Hannah, Mme Kerry Lennon and her husband, Steve.
What was special about this Tour?
Accommodation
The students were paired up and placed in homestay families chosen by the Ateliers FL. The families were well known to the French school, having hosted students for a number of years. We visited all the families and were impressed by their enthusiasm and dedication to giving our girls a safe and welcoming home where they could speak French every evening and learn about home life in France.
Timing
Other tours have taken place over the Christmas holidays. This gives more time in the country, but during the coldest period of the year. We wanted to experiment with a trip during the early autumn when we hoped to find more favourable weather conditions, which we did.
The French School
Finally, by attending a French language school, we hoped to make the most of the two weeks of class time. With a reciprocal exchange, students attend classes with their host sister and any learning during the various lessons can be haphazard and depend on the focus of the student in the different lessons.
During this tour, the students attended three hours of classes every morning based around their established learning needs. Their teacher, Isabelle, conducted lessons in French, helping the girls to develop and fine tune their listening, speaking, reading, writing and grammar skills.
Biarritz: a surfside French city with a Basque flavour
Biarritz, accessible by plane or the very fast train, TGV, is a small, safe city well serviced by an extensive transport system of free electric buses, paid buses and trains. It is a walkable, seaside town with safe beaches and a lively town centre focused on the covered market.
After morning classes, the school planned outings for us. Activities included a walking tour around Biarritz to give some history and get us oriented, visits to the Aquarium and the Cité de l’océan, surfing lessons, a bowling afternoon in Bayonne and a weekend trip on the TGV to Bordeaux. We loved our stay in Biarritz and the balance of experiences on offer. The girls enjoyed a measure of independence around the structure of morning classes and afternoon activities, catching the bus to and from school every day and swimming as often as they could. While surfing lessons were an obvious highlight, the girls were introduced to the importance of the Basque identity of the region in their families and learned to play Pelote Basque, a ball game that is a mix of tennis, squash, and handball with a scooped mitt called a chistera.
A weekend in Bordeaux
On Saturday 5 October we jumped in an early morning TGV and settled in for a two-hour trip to Bordeaux. A beautiful, historic town on the banks of the Garonne, Bordeaux is a big, lively city, the home of great food and fine wines. It is also the home of the tallest sand dune in Europe, the Dune du Pilat, which we climbed twice! Our visit was completed by a walking tour and river cruise where we tasted the local sweet treat, les Canelés bordelais.
Paris
We were sad to leave the delightful coastal town of Biarritz and the host families who had become our home away from home, but the City of Lights beckoned. On Friday afternoon 11 October, we jumped back into the TGV for a four-hour trip to Paris where we arrived at the bustling Gare Montparnasse.
We packed as many unique Parisian experiences as possible into four days and five nights including several meals in authentic French bistros, shopping time at the Galeries Lafayettes and the Champs Élysées, climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower and walking the length of the Champs Élysées from the Arc de Triomphe. We saw La Joconde (the Mona Lisa, much smaller in real life) and other treasures of the Louvre, and the great artworks of the Impressionist era by Degas, Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet and Manet at the Musée d’Orsay.
Thanks to Mrs Hannah’s knowledge of the theatrical scene in Paris, we saw a French production of the Bald Soprano by Eugene Ionescu in the Théâtre de la Huchette where the show has run non-stop since 1957! We also had an amazing behind the scenes visit of the Palais Garnier where we were able to enter the private box of the Phantom of the Opera.
A walking tour of the Quartier Latin brought this most ancient part of the city to life for us all as we strolled past the nearly completely restored Cathédrale de Notre Dame, built over several hundred years from 1163-1345 through streets leading to the first university of Paris, the Sorbonne. We were unable to visit Notre Dame, but ducked into its contemporary, the church of Saint-Séverin, where we could admire the gothic architecture and stained-glass windows. We even came across bronzed scallop shells embedded in the roadway, indicating the pathway to Saint Jacques de Compostelle.
We continued through small streets whose names tell of ancient occupants, Rue des Prêtres, or occupations like Rue de la Parcheminerie past a mediaeval home, now museum of the Middle Ages, le Musée de Cluny to the home of a more modern occupant, the Place de l’Estrapade, home of Emily in Paris!
Stéphane Beraza, master crêpe maker and owner of the crêperie Caramel Sarrasin, closed his restaurant to outsiders for one evening to give us a master class on ‘real French crêpes’. We learned how to make crepes from scratch using his secret recipe, then cooked our own in the compact kitchen of his restaurant. They were delicious!
On our final day in Paris, we headed out early on the RER C for the nearby town of Versailles where we had a 9:00am appointment to visit the eponymous chateau and admire the extensive and beautiful gardens. Some final resting and packing time in the afternoon ensured we were dressed and ready for a special last night of fine dining at Elsass, where specialties from the Alsace region were on offer. Nearly everyone tried the meaty, garlicky snails!
By 7:30 am the next day we were on our way to Charles de Gaulle airport where we said farewell to Madame and Monsieur Lennon and farewell to Paris, for now.
Every student gave the best of herself throughout the tour, demonstrating care and concern for one another, open-mindedness and respect for everyone with whom they came into contact. We have shared an extraordinary adventure together and promised to meet in Paris again five years on.