Queenswood students’ Parisian weekend
Wednesday 3 May 2017
One weekend in March, 13 girls along with Miss Pierre and Miss Gimenez began our journey to the lovely Paris. Taking the Eurostar was easy and convenient and it was interesting to travel through other parts of France.
When we arrived we met our French animateur, Faissal, and it was hard work but exciting to practise and speak only French with him. At first a lot of the girls found it hard but as the trip went on, we managed to improve and use our French more.
We proceeded to have dinner at our hotel and find our rooms. Our hotel was based in the French district of Le Marais. The cobblestones on the ground were a lovely display of the French culture, however my friend’s suitcase kept falling onto its left wheel, so she struggled to pull it. On the other hand, it was very amusing for the rest of us to see her attempt to drag it along the ground.
It was easy for us to take the metro on Saturday and Sunday as we strolled past all the fascinating French architecture. The next morning, we began by strolling along the Seine, whilst the sun shone beautifully, and made our way towards the Musée D’Orsay. Inside we saw the lovely art of Van Gogh and Monet.
We walked past the Moulin Rouge on our way to walking to lunch, where we stopped in Montmartre. The buzz of shops and artists was captivating. My friends and I ate in a quaint French café, and after we decided to walk around and look at all the street art, and didn’t hesitate to buy an ice cream.
We stopped off to see the Sacré Cœur, and I was mesmerized by the stunning views from the top of the hill. Inside it was beautiful, and we were all amazed by the incredible attention to detail. Following that, we went to the Notre Dame, and as the sun was still shining we went to wander around the park area. We strolled to where we ate dinner, at a fantastic crêperie, and the food was delicious. After that, we watched quite an interesting and odd movie set in Paris called Paris pieds nus – ‘Lost in Paris’ – which was fairly bizarre…
We awoke on Sunday to another lovely, sunny day. We caught the metro to Opera station, where we saw the stunning Opera house, the inspiration for ‘The Phantom of the Opera’. After that, we walked to ‘Paris Story’, a place where we got to watch the fascinating history of Paris from the past 2000 years. Wandering past the Place Vendôme, we saw designer shops like Chanel and Louis Vuitton. We then walked towards the Louvre, and spent some time taking picture-perfect photos in front of the Louvre Pyramid.
As the sun still shone beautifully, it seemed only right that we had a picnic in Les Jardin des Tuileries. I know I definitely felt very French when eating my French baguette in the wonderful sunshine, whilst wondering how miserable the weather would be back in England, and slightly sad to return.
To end our trip, we headed to the Champs-Élysées, for a couple of hours of exciting shopping. However, before that, and what felt like an absolute marathon to walk there, we arrived at L’Arc de Triomphe. The Arc towered above our heads, and we remembered some interesting history we had learnt in the morning about the continuous fire burning under the Arc.
We then sauntered back towards the main street of the Champs-Élysées, where all of us proceeded to wander round the incredibly high end shops and boutiques, and were all amazed at the sheer exquisiteness of the French culture – a perfect way to end our trip. We travelled back on the Eurostar and were most certainly very tired and happy to be back in our own beds.
