History-making woman

Wow, guys!  We're seeing history being made.

Remember when we visited the Pantheon in Paris and we learned that only two women were buried there?  One being the wife of a baron and the other one being Marie Curie.  I also told you that there was some push from the French public to have more women in there so they were considering moving Simone de Beauvoir from her resting place in the Montparnasse cemetery.  Personally, I don't like that idea because right now, she's buried next to her long-time partner, Jean-Paul Sartre so moving her (but not him) would mean they wouldn't be together anymore.  I just think they should be together.

Anyways, Simone Veil passed away last week and after the public voicing their opinion, President Macron just announced that she will be buried in the Pantheon. So another woman is going in the Pantheon!

A Holocaust survivor, Veil later became a lawyer and politician is best known for her fight to legalize abortion.  The law passed became known as "la loi Veil", named after her.  She was also elected member of the illustrious Académie Française in 2008.

Pretty cool stuff.

CORRECTION/UPDATE: There are two other women, Germaine Tillion and Genevieve de Gaulle-Anthonioz, both Resistance fighters during WW2, that were buried symbolically (soil from their gravesite) in the Pantheon in 2014 but their actual remains are elsewhere.

Back in CLE

One last group photo after arriving back in Cleveland:

Paris, tu nous manques déjà!

Perfumes, a princess and pasta!

Sighhhh. Today was our last full day and I think we made it a good one. We headed out about 8am this morning toward Èze and took a tour of Fragonard, a perfume factory. We learned what all it takes to make a high-quality perfume, including tons and tons of flowers to get one liter of essential oil. We also learned that usually high-quality, "real" perfumes have a symphony of head notes, heart notes and base notes so they may have up to nine or ten different scents to make up one beautiful perfume. 

After Fragonard, we went just a few more miles along the Corniche to get to Monaco. There, we saw the changing of the guards at the palace (well, except for us short people - we saw mostly helmets and tops of guns). Then we had some free time to explore the streets and visit the cathedral where Princess Grace Kelly is buried.

Then we went another few miles and crossed the Italian border and went a little farther to Sanremo, Italy which was such a treat. We had opted to wait for Italy for lunch so we could have some of their world-famous pasta or pizza. Then after a quick walking tour of the old town with its narrow, cobbled streets, we had some free time to shop or eat gelato.

At 6pm, we drove about 1 1/2 hours back to our hotel for dinner. After dinner, some of us walked down to the beach that was about a 15-minute walk from our hotel and lo and behold: sand! (Not rocks like in Nice.) We played in the water until about 10pm and then trekked home to repack and reorganize for tomorrow's air travel. 

So we've had a wonderful time. We've seen a lot, we've learned a lot and we have lots of stories to tell you. So thanks for following the blog for this year's installment. Thanks especially to the parents that allowed your children to travel with me on this trip. You cannot even begin to imagine what they've experienced and it means the world to me that you've entrusted your babies to me and my other chaperones to travel this far without you. 

From Paris to the plage!

We got up early this morning to catch our train to Nice. There was a slight snag with the bus driver but we still made it on time. Our train left at 9:21 and we caught our first glimpses of the Mediterranean by noon or so when we neared Marseille. It took us until 3pm to arrive in Nice because they made a few stops along the way. So arriving in Nice, we packed the bus and we went by bus just a little way to the Promenade des Anglais along the water. 

After a quick walking tour of the old town, we split up for some free time. Because it is Sunday, a lot of the major stores weren't open but many little shops in the old section were. But who am I kidding? Those kids wanted to go swimming! So many of them enjoyed the water and a few climbed to the look-out point over the Baie des Anges. We all met back up at 8pm to catch our bus back to our hotel just west of Cannes for a late dinner.

So now we have one more full day in France and we are excited for what's planned, possibly including more swim time!

Last full day in Paris

Since this was our last full day in Paris and it was just going to be our group, we had a day packed full of activities. We started out at Musée d'Orsay where we got to see lots of Impressionist paintings and sculptures dating from between 1848 and 1914, including lots by Monet, Degas, Renoir and Van Gogh. Of course, the kids were on an bear hunt for Pompon's "Ours Blanc" because I tell them about it when we learn about Paris in French I. 

After a few hours there, we stopped by Cluny, leftovers from a Roman bath dating from the 3rd century, walked by the Sorbonne and ended up at the Pantheon. Most of us toured the Pantheon where we got the see the tombs of Pierre and Marie Curie, Alexandre Dumas, Louis Braille and Victor Hugo.

We then had some time to grab lunch and I took the students that have already read The Little Prince to the official boutique for the book for a special shopping trip. After lunch, we met up and spent some time in the Luxembourg Gardens. And the we left the Left Bank and headed to the Opera Garnier, to either see the opera house or do some shopping or maybe a little of both. I actually ran into a teacher friend that I traveled with in 2011 (unplanned) and a former student from my yearbook-advisor days (planned).

Jardins du Luxembourg:

Opera Garnier:

Then off to dinner in Montmartre and then we returned to the area by Sacre-Cœur for a little more last-minute shopping or just soaking in the sites. Then we moseyed our way through side streets and passed the café where Amélie works in the movie. And then we got to see the Moulin Rouge too. Now we're back at the hotel and repacking or reorganizing for our train to Nice tomorrow. See you then!

Kings and capital

This morning, we had a bit of a late start due to our bus driver's 12-hour limit so we finally got going about 10am. We drove straight from Beuzeville to Versailles where we had extended time in the gardens to do some exploring. Most of our group had a 3:10 booking and we finally entered the palace just after that with a local tour guide. We saw the famed Hall of Mirrors, the chapel and the king and queen's bedrooms (separate). Then at 4:30, we got on the bus again to drive back into Paris for dinner at Flam's where they served flammekueche, a traditional Alsatian flatbread pizza of sorts. Not exactly that but it's hard to explain.

After dinner, we climbed the stairs to the top of the Arc de Triomphe at the end of the Champs-Elysées... I lost count after 200 and something. It was quite the hike but the views were amazing, especially since the sun was low in the sky and starting to set. Afterwards, we had more time to shop on the Champs-Elysées before meeting at 9:30pm to head back to the hotel. Upon our arrival, we cleaned out the bus and got our suitcases since we will no longer be with Stéphane, our bus driver for this past week. And so now the groups that we've been with all week go separate ways: one goes home, the other stays but has different plans than us. We have one more full day in Paris so let's get some sleep so we can enjoy it!

Battle on the beach

We headed out on the road about 8am this morning to start our day covering sites linked to World War Two. It was cool, overcast and breezy today which was the total opposite of what we've experienced since we arrived last Saturday. We had a little bit of bus time before we arrived at the Omaha landing beaches. Some of us took time to gather a little sand or stick our feet in the water while others just contemplated the events that took place there in 1944.  After knocking the sand off our shoes, we headed to Pointe du Hoc, where the U.S. Rangers landed as part of the operations. We were able to walk between huge craters left from bombings and look out over the cliffs that just help us to realize and understand the difficulty of the task the Americans had to successfully take over that land from the Germans. Then we stopped at the American cemetery to pay our respects to 9,387 Americans buried there and to the 1,557 whose final resting places are unknown and whose names are inscribed in the Garden of the Missing.

Omaha Beach:

Pointe du Hoc: 

American Cemetery:

We then took a lunch break in Arromanches, where we able to see concrete blocks still out in the water as part of the artificial bridges or mulberries that the Allies used to get supplies from England to the troops - everything from tanks, gasoline, ammunition and food. 

After lunch, we drove to the Caen Peace Memorial and Museum to see artifacts and history from the eras before, during and after the Battle of Normandy, including a short film with footage from wartime.

Then we were able to make a stop in Honfleur, which was not on the original itinerary. We got to spend some free time exploring this cute little town on the mouth of the Seine. It is home to the oldest wooden church in Europe and the only wooden church in France. Then about 7:45, we headed off to our hotel for the night in Beuzeville. It's again kind of in the middle of nowhere so the kids are still bonding, playing games and hanging out. It's still light outside at 10pm so we are taking advantage of the long days.

Honfleur: its wooden church and its harbor

North coast news

This morning, we left Tours about 7:30am because we had about 3 1/2 hours in the bus to head north to Mont-Saint-Michel which is a monastery built on an island in the English Channel. This UNESCO site has been around for hundreds of years and is still inhabited by a small group of monks. It's quintessentially French with small, narrow streets lined with tourist shops and restaurants catering to the tourists. (By the way, last time is was here, it was cool and cloudy to the point we had jackets and long pants - today, even though we were north and on the coast, it was still in the high 80s. Got to be breaking a record of some sort.) So in the heat yet again, we climbed our way to the top of the hill to explore the famous fortress-turned-monastery. Luckily, it was a little cooler inside so we had a chance to escape the heat for a little while.  So after our visit, we had a chance to explore the little shops and grab something for lunch. Packed like sardines, we took a shuttle bus back to the parking lot and it was so hot my pants were sticking to my knees. As I'm sure you can imagine, it was good to sit in the AC on the bus. 

Our next stop was just down the road at a cookie shop where we got to taste-test a few kinds and then of course buy some. So maybe you'll get to try some... that is, if we don't eat them first. ;). 

Just over an hour later, we got to Saint Malo, which was so much cooler and breezier. What a relief. So Mario took us on a quick walking tour to get a lay of the land and see the cathedral where Jacques Cartier was blessed by the bishop before he left here to discover Canada. Then we had a little free time to explore and go up on the city walls. Then dinner of "moules frites" (mussels and fries) or steak and fries if we didn't want the mussels and vanilla ice cream for dessert. The annual fête de la musique had just started as we were leaving so we only got a little taste of it before we had to leave. Now tonight our hotel is pretty much in the middle of nowhere so a good deal of bonding time happened this evening. So on this longest day of the year, where it's finally getting dark about 11pm, I will say good night. 

Shopping and castle-hopping

This morning, our tour director gave us a free morning to shop our way through Tours. So personally, I hit up the grocery store and pharmacy for those products that I can't find at home and most of the kids hit up clothing stores and whatnot in search of that one special thing to bring home.

So after that, we hopped on the bus to head to Amboise to meet a local guide, Aurélie, who took us on a tour of the castle at Amboise, which is only 1/5 the size of what it was at one point. It is also where Leonardo daVinci is buried.  (He was François I's friend and lived a mile down the road at a castle called Clos-Lucé.).

So after we saw the castle, we trekked back down the hill and through town to catch the bus again to Chenonceau, "the ladies' castle."  It stretches out over the Cher River so it's known for the one with the arches over the river. I love this castle and its gardens but it seemed like this heat wave of almost 100 degrees is affecting everyone's experience because we can hardly move without dripping sweat.

But we did find some respite from the heat when we had dinner in a troglodyte cave. I was proud of the kids for trying "rillettes" which is warm, fresh bread with yummy butter and pork spread. The idea of pork spread may turn some people off but I told the kids to at least try it and they did for the most part.

After dinner, back to the hotel for an early night because we are going to have an early start to head to Mont-Saint-Michel tomorrow. So time for bed and you'll hear more from me tomorrow hopefully...depending on the wi-fi situation.

Canicule (n.f.) = heat wave

This morning, we left Paris for the countryside. For about 2 hours, we were in the comfort of our air-conditioned bus on our way to Chartres, which is known for its cathedral. Really, for a Monday morning, the town was rather quiet. A lot of the students said that they really liked it after the touristy hustle and bustle of Paris.  So we toured the cathedral and explored the little town until 12:30pm.

It was starting to get warm so we were happy with the idea of getting on the bus for a little while longer to get to the castle of Chambord, which was built by François I, the king of the French Renaissance and the one responsible for bringing Leonardo DaVinci to France. It has 444 rooms, 365 fireplaces and the famous double-helix staircase supposedly designed by DaVinci. It wasn't really occupied for very long because it was really only used as a hunting retreat for the kings and their buddies. The heat of the afternoon had hit and we sought the solace of the castle to try to keep cool. But we did venture out to explore the rooftops and get a view of the beautiful, newly-restored gardens (thanks to a very rich American). It was 94 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. (It was hotter here today than in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in Africa today... don't ask me why I know that. Haha) so we are trying to keep cool, trying to keep hydrated as much as we can but it's going to be even hotter tomorrow - 100 degrees or above. 

So after Chambord, we had a little ways to go to our hotel in Tours, one of my favorite French cities. We had a short rest/ freshen-up time before we walked to dinner. Dinner was ham steak, fries and salad with a chocolate torte with crème anglaise. Then we went on a walking tour of the old, medieval part of Tours. A lot of the kids were so excited because they recognized from pictures in our textbooks. "It's real! It does exist! And we're actually here!!!!"

So we sauntered our way through the narrow streets and finally arrived back at the hotel. I gotta admit, the kids are bonding and mixing and chatting more, both within our group and with the other groups. I told them before, we may be strangers at the airport but we'll be family by the end.