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Ivybridge Community College

Ivybridge Community College

Ivybridge Community College

Sixth Form Trip to Paris

In February, a group of Tertiary students spent four days seeing the stunning sights of Paris.

In February, nine Sixth-Form students spent four days exploring the stunning city of Paris.  For the students studying English, the trip was very useful as it allowed us to explore many of the locations which feature in our Paris Anthology and we were also able to get a feel for the city as a whole, with its beautiful boulevards and attractive Haussmanian buildings.  This will be of great benefit to us for our exams, particularly for the creative writing element of the AS paper.  For those studying French, the trip gave us a chance to practise our speaking skills by ordering food in restaurants, booking into the hostel, buying metro tickets and just generally listening to all of the French people speaking around us!  As well as this language immersion, we were able to truly discover the culture of the city, and of France as a whole.

With the full itinerary, we were definitely able to make the most out of our time in Paris!  The first full day was split between visiting the Louvre and climbing the Eiffel Tower (well, taking the lift!).  You would have to spend days or even weeks in the Louvre to fully appreciate the 70,000 works of art that it boasts, but I think that we got a good feel for it in the time that we spent there.  We saw countless famous pieces of art including works by Monet, Delacroix and David.  We even managed to see the Mona Lisa without there being a queue!  The Louvre was definitely the highlight of the trip for many of us!  After a morning being enriched by art, we spent the afternoon up the Eiffel Tower, appreciating the incredible views of the city and seeing many of the places that we would be exploring in the next few days.

Other landmarks that we explored during our time in Paris included Notre Dame, The Pompidou Centre, Sacré Cœur, The Sorbonne, and Shakespeare and Company, the English language bookshop where renowned writers like Ernest Hemingway spent a lot of time.  For the English students in particular, this place was very exciting and I’m sure many of us could have happily spent all day sitting in there reading a book and listening to the piano tinkling away upstairs.  We also took part in a boat trip on the Seine and a walking tour of central Paris, both of which were great ways to connect all of the dots and truly get an overall feel for the city.

Sadly, Sunday was our last day, and we spent the morning doing our creative writing and packing our things.  Before returning to the airport, the afternoon was spent exploring Galeries Lafayette, a huge (and very posh) department store in magnificent building.

Having fallen in love with Paris, it was difficult to say au revoir, but I doubt many of us will be able to stay away for long! 

Hannah Reeves