ST MARY’S WAVERLEY TOUR TO FRANCE – APRIL 2013
16 APRIL D DAY!
At 3.30pm a group of very excited girls gathered at the International Departure Hall at ORT, all eager to embark on a great adventure together. Check-in went smoothly and once through emigration, they had time to wander through the duty free shops and digest the fact they were actually off to France! Mrs Carla Gordon is an experienced chaperone who has gone to great lengths to ensure that this will be an enjoyable & academically relevant tour and she is aware that the safety and security of your precious children is of paramount importance. Bon voyage to all and more tomorrow…..
APRIL 17 SAFE ARRIVAL!
Bienvenue a Paris! The plane landed on time and there were no problems with immigration or with the retrieval of luggage, which is always a great relief! Their coach was waiting at the designated area and transferred them to the hotel, where they had some time to freshen up and change their clothes. With the sun shining and iin high spirits, they set off on their first metro experience to the Musée Grévin, which they really enjoyed! At lunchtime they returned to the hotel to unpack, settle in and relax, before making their way to Montmartre, the highest natural point in Paris. They thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to souvenir-shop en route to the beautiful basilica of Sacré Coeur and after a visit to this magnificent cathedral, they strolled to the Place du Tertre, which was buzzing with activity and here they enjoyed a delicious 3 course dinner at La Cremaillère, one of the most famous restaurants on the square. All are now happily in their rooms and will undoubtedly enjoy a good night's sleep after an amazing 1st day in Paris! A reminder that they are staying at the Ibis Paris Gare du Nord Chateau Landon for the next 6 nights: Tel: 00 33 1 44 65 70 00.
18 APRIL A WONDERFUL DAY IN PARIS!
"Wow - what a wonderful day we have had today!” Mrs Gordon confirmed that they had such a good night’s sleep and all woke up refreshed & ready to embrace the day! After an ample breakfast they hopped on the metro and made their way to the Centre Pompidou, where they travelled on the external escalators to the summit for a superb view of Paris. Thereafter they crossed to l’Ile de la Cité, where they had a guided tour of La Conciergerie, followed by a visit to the outstandingly magnificent Sainte Chapelle. After admiring the rose windows in Notre Dame, they enjoyed an informal picnic in the park behind this magnificent Cathedral and then they crossed the bridge to the l’Ile St-Louis, where they sampled the best ice cream in Paris at Berthillon - according to Mrs G, it’s not a cold hard fact, but a delicious cold fact! At 14h00 they met with their guide Catherine at the Louvre and she was apparently amazing - very informative but not too much and the Art girls really enjoyed this. Everyone is now officially exhausted and glad to be having supper at the hotel tonight - a chance to recharge batteries and rest their weary feet!
19 APRIL ANOTHER FULL & FABULOUS DAY IN PARIS!
I was delighted to receive this news from Carla! “We have had yet another busy but amazing day in Paris! We climbed to the top of the Arc de Triomphe and loved the view from the top. We then made our way to the Opéra Garnier and Rita was a fantastic guide – she gave the girls such interesting facts and it was very educational. The girls also shopped at Galéries Lafayette and the surrounding shops, which they really loved! Then after the very popular fashion show, the girls enjoyed time along the Champs Elysées and after supper we left for our guided coach tour of Paris, "Les Illuminations". It was truly spectacular and we saw the Eiffel Tower's 2000 light bulbs scintillating at 22h00 for 5 minutes. Catherine, our guide, made the tour so very interesting. The girls are each having a turn to map out a metro route and lead us - it is very good practice for them to be able to navigate around a city like Paris.”
20 APRIL EIFFEL TOWER + CRUISE + VERSAILLES!
Ah we have contact .... mails were seemingly lost in the ether! “We had a much more laid back day today, which the girls really appreciated. Our schedule has been hectic until now and they enjoyed being able to sit for an hour during the Seine cruise, just chilling and listening to the commentary. We are finding Paris fairly quiet on the whole at the tourist destinations when we have been there. The Eiffel Tower was a breeze today with very little congestion, as was the Louvre the other day. Versailles was quite busy but not like it is during summer. The musical water fountains were delightful. The girls wandered around the gardens taking fantastic photos - the Form III fashion show in October is uppermost in their minds! Suzi took notes furiously during the Fashion Show and Bongiwe is keeping her up at night discussing ideas for the St Mary's fashion show! Katie is receiving art lessons from Suzi. Today Katie and Reid both learnt about Doric columns! The scale of Versailles and its gardens amazed the girls. They particularly liked the way they could proceed through the palace at their own pace with ear phones listening to the recordings in English. We had a delicious supper in a restaurant in the town of Versailles and the girls regaled each other with tales of their most embarrassing moments ever! They were in high spirits and have become a cohesive group already after 4 days together. On our return this evening, I told the group how proud I am of them and how much I am enjoying the trip with them. The best words I heard came from Caroline when she said: ‘Thank you for bringing us to Paris, Madame!’ This really made my day!”
21 APRIL ANOTHER FULL DAY IN PARIS!
“Today was art museum day and we loved the Impressionist paintings at the Musée d’Orsay. I reminded the girls that they will be able to stand on the very Japanese bridge that they saw in the painting when they are at Giverny on Tuesday! Rodin's ‘The Thinker’ and ‘The Kiss’ were huge hits at The Rodin Museum, as was the magnificent home and garden of the museum itself. Napoleon's tomb was also impressive and the girls loved the sad love story of Napoleon and Josephine. After some free time to explore along the Left Bank, we had a delicious meal on Rue Descartes, which was a perfectly apt end to an artistically philosophical day: ‘I think therefore I am’!! The girls are really enjoying the iPad’s and they look at the presentations every morning before setting off! The prize winners of spot quiz questions have been Caroline & Rebecca and Katie won today's Socrative quiz based on all the information garnered from presentations and guides. Well done, girls, you are obviously paying attention!! All are so excited at the thought of Disneyland Paris tomorrow and we’re thinking of permanently changing Mondays to ‘EuroDisney Day’! We’re all having the time of our lives!”
22 APRIL EURODISNEY DAY!!
“All the girls were so excited this morning and there was a great buzz over breakfast! Added to this, the tale of Reid needing a midnight snack last night, so she ate a carrot and Katie was terrified as she was asleep and didn't know which dinosaur was about to attack her - we roared with laughter!! The weather for our special day at EuroDisney was good for most of the day, with a slight chill in the air, but mostly a clear blue sky.The girls had the perfect day, shopping, going on the rides, shopping again and also chatting to their friends from school who are on Science Tour – before shopping some more…!!”
23 APRIL ONWARD TO ROUEN VIA GIVERNY!
We have had a wonderful relaxing day traveling through the French countryside and Giverny was sheer paradise. We loved the gardens and took thousands of photos of exquisite flowers. The house that Monet lived in was also utterly beautiful and it was great to see him in photos in the very rooms where we were standing - nothing had changed! The French are amazing when it comes to preser ving their heritage of which they are so proud. Our guided tour of Rouen was really amazing - it is such a quaint & delightful town and I keep expecting to see Asterix & Obelix peeping out of the old timber houses!! Off to dinner now ....
24 APRIL ONWARD TO HONFLEUR & CAEN
“We had a lovely visit to Honfleur this morning – it is such a quaint and beautiful place! The girls have enjoyed all the guides so far, especially Rita at the Opera. We then continued on to Caen and thoroughly enjoyed exploring the Peace Museum, which gave us great insight to our tour scheduled for tomorrow. I think tomorrow is going to be quite emotionally taxing - today was bad enough! Supper was incredible as usual and we LOVE our hotel! The girls have found it all very interesting, especially the History girls and the Art girls have also found the tour extremely enriching - not to mention the French girls…!”
25 APRIL D DAY LANDING BEACHES
“We had a relaxing day touring the D Day landing beaches, yet it was tiring at the same time because it was so completely relaxing! We loved the introduction to today at the Caen Memorial Centre yesterday and the 360 degree movie at Arromanches was new and excellent. We also loved Omaha beach & the American cemetery and they happened to be playing the American national anthem while we were there, which was utterly moving. We had an exceptionally beautiful day today, with blue skies and sunshine and the girls ran on the beach, enjoying the sand between their toes and the cold water of the Atlantic! After another delicious supper, we retired to bed relatively early to try to catch up on some precious sleep and we are really looking forward to Mont-St-Michel tomorrow!”
26 APRIL LE MONT ST MICHEL AND ONWARD TO ST MALO
“We all loved our visit to Le Mont-St-Michel today, in spite of the weather! It is bitterly cold and blustery, but as this is our first miserable day, we can't complain! We spent a few hours wandering around St-Malo and it is so pretty within the old city walls! It is now after 6pm and we’re still shopping, believe it or not and tasting all the Breton delicacies! We will be going to supper shortly and we’re looking forward to it - the food in France has been awesome and we are all going to roll into O R Tambo!”
27 APRIL THEIR LAST LEG & ONWARD TO THE LOIRE VALLEY!
“We have just come upstairs from a delicious supper - every meal seems even more delicious than the last!! I have come to prepare the Nearpod presentation / quiz for tomorrow night, and the girls are repacking their suitcases. We did a Socrative quiz on the D Day landings this morning before our departure for Blois, and Bongiwe won it by the skin of her teeth and Suzi won the spot quiz prize on Monet yesterday! I think Tam and Grace are going to win the punctuality prize for the entire trip - bravo! We found the Blois castle guided tour to be very interesting, though the girls found this guide's English to be the hardest to comprehend of all the guides - their French accents are reall y so thick that we have struggled sometimes to make sense of what they are saying!! We loved all the beautiful Fleur de Lys emblems all over the castle walls & ceilings and it was utterly impressive. We are all well and looking forward to our return journey and telling all our stories - we have no idea though how we are going to fit everything that we have bought into our suitcases!!”
28 APRIL CHATEAUX & CYCLING - A PERFECT ENDING TOUR THE TOUR!
“Today was a fantastic way to end the tour - the girls absolutely LOVED the cycling around the estate of Chambord! They all said it was the highlight of their trip and the best way to have ended the holiday! The castle of Chambord was beautiful outside but quite austere inside and we definitely preferred the châteaux of Chenonceau & Blois. We took many photos of all the castles but Chenonceau was utterly beautiful and impressive, so I think we have more photos of that castle than any of the others!! We simply can't believe that our French Tour is almost at an end and we discussed it at length in the bus today - no one would have changed anything except perhaps the length of the D Day landing beaches visit. They loved Paris as it was and would not shorten it at all, and they loved the easiness of the coach drives this week. All in all, a most successful trip and we thank you hugely Jenny - we still have tomorrow to look forward to …!!”
29 APRIL HOMEWARD BOUND!
Homeward bound today and en route to Roissy Charles de Gaulle, they will enjoy one last visit, stopping to admire the immense beauty of the Cathedral in Chartres. By all accounts this has been the most wonderful tour and everyone will be returning home with such fond memories of la belle France. I have confirmed their return flight on AF 990 which departs from Paris tonight at 23h20 and I am sure there is no need to remind all excited mums & dads that their beloved daughters are scheduled to arrive at OR Tambo @ 09h40 on Tuesday 30 April. Whilst everyone is really looking forward to seeing family and friends, the tight-knit group will be left with a sense of sadness at having to say farewell to people they have grown so accustomed to seeing on a daily basis. All will undoubtedly be exhausted upon arrival and whilst the many wonderful anecdotes may not immediately be forthcoming, they will I know reveal themselves in the days, months and even years to come! To act ‘in loco parentis’ is no mean task and I sincerely hope that the love & compassion shown by Mme Carla Gordon was appreciated by all. Single handedly she went far beyond the call of duty to ensure that your girls were well cared for, happy and safe. I admire & applaud her calm perspective, sense of fun and professionalism ~ she has been a pleasure to work with and her dedication, energy and enthusiasm have been inspirational. I know too that Mrs Gordon has appreciated the girls’ willingness to cooperate and she has been so impressed with their impeccable behaviour and their sense of adventure. As parents you can rest assured that you have afforded your children the most wonderful opportunity and I have no doubt that each and every girl will return not only academically enriched, but enriched as a person, having matured and grown in confidence and the precious memories & firm bonds of friendships will last a lifetime. It has been a joy and privilege to be associated with St Mary’s Waverely on our 5th French tour and it remains for me to say ‘merci beaucoup, bon retour et à la prochaine!