Day 9

Paris Walking Tour & Night Train


   This morning we had several hours of free time.  My family (Petersons) chose to eat breakfast at a French cafe near our hostel.  The kids enjoyed crepes with Nutella.  We also washed our clothes at a laundromat and shoved everything back in our suitcases... not a fun way to spend our last morning in Paris!  Other families spent the morning more pleasantly, strolling through the city.

   At 1:00 some of our group members met at the Arc de Triomphe and and Cindy led them down the Champs Elysees.  A walking tour of the city with our professional guides began at 2:00.  We culminated the tour with a picnic in an enclosed garden area.  Some of us opted out of the picnic to enjoy wonderful French food at a nearby bistro.

Ken and Jake enjoying our last meal in Paris.

The unique stairwell in our Paris hostel.

Our Paris walking tour culminated outside the Louvre, formerly a Palace for the royal family.

    Finally, we said "Au Revoir" to Paris, got our luggage from the hostel and took the Metro to the Gare de Lyon train station. We boarded the Thello train for a 10 hour overnight ride to Milan, where we connected to another train to Florence.  On this high speed electric train we had sleeping cars, with six bunks to a room.  Accommodations were very tight and I didn't sleep, but most people slept a little.  We travelled through Switzerland and the Alps during the night, I wish I could have seen the mountains out the window!  We travelled through some really, really long tunnels, 20-30km in length!  I can't imagine what it took to dig those long tunnels through the mountains.

This is a screen shot from Google Maps on my iPhone as I tracked our progress through the Swiss Alps at 3:30 AM!  Our location is the blue dot near the center. While my train cabin mates slept, I laid awake, aware and sad that I couldn't see the beautiful mountains we passed through!

Day 8 - Paris & Versailles

Half-Marathon Walking!

  Thursday, July 2nd was brutal on our bodies! We walked and walked, just over 13 miles by day's end with temperatures in the 90s. (It had been 102 the day before at The Louvre!)

   Our first destination was the palace at Versailles. We toured the jaw-dropping, opulent home to Louis XIV, XV, XVI, and the famous Marie Antoinette. After visiting the interior rooms, such as the Hall of Mirrors and King's and Queen's separate bed chambers, we spent a little time exploring the massive garden which is also divided into "rooms." We purchased lunch at kiosks in the garden, then relaxed and played on the grass before continuing our tour.
  After lunch we walked a long distance to visit more sites. We toured a smaller palace on the grounds which was regarded as the "simplistic" country home to the French royalty, yet still quite fancy. We also toured two homes dedicated to Marie Antoinette. She had her own small palace in which the stair rails were adorned with her own personal symbol, the letters M and A stacked on each other. Her "playhouse" was also part of our tour. This is where she pretended to be a peasant, played with her children and enjoyed the simple life with farm animals.
  The walk back to the main entrance of Versailles and to the train station was extremely long! It really impressed upon us the vastness of the Palace garden, because we only visited one quarter of it, if that!

The showy gold gates, adorned with the Sun King's (Louis XIV) emblem in front of the Palace at Versailles.

SLOCA students and parents toured many lavish rooms of the palace.

The long, sparkling Hall of Mirrors

Queen Marie Antoinette's bedroom in the palace.

Some Modern Art on display in the garden of the palace reverses the reflection of our SLOCA group.

Competition was hot in a game of hacky sack catch with Mr. Stavros in the palace garden.

Students Sandy and Fiona created their own gymnast art in the palace garden. The Palace at Versailles is in the distance.

Lucy and Sandy in front of Marie Antoinette's peasant "play house" on a far corner of the Versailles Palace grounds.

   Following the one-hour train ride back to Paris, we visited the Notre Dame Cathedral where we were allowed to enter during the evening Vespers service.

   Our long day didn't stop here... We returned to our hostel for dinner and then headed out again.

The dining room of our hostel in Paris was in the basement of an old building, an old cellar ceiling.

SLOCA student travelers after dinner at our hostel in Paris.

We had an evening river cruise down the Seine, admiring ornate bridges and lovely architecture along the river.  This photo was taken around 10:00 p.m., still plenty of light on a Paris summer night.

Finally, we capped the day with a ride up to the second floor of the Eiffel Tower.  In the year 2000 sparkling lights were added to the tower. The sparkling takes place a few times each night.  We were on the tower at 11:00 p.m. for the sparkling display that night.

Going up the Eiffel Tower in an old elevator

A View of the River Seine and The Arc de Triomphe from the Eiffel Tower

Day 7

London to Paris by "Chunnel"

   On Wednesday, July 1 we travelled from London to Paris on the Eurostar high speed train. The train rockets through the undersea tunnel at speeds of about 200 MPH. The day before we departed, there had been strikes and demonstrations by English Channel ferry workers which disrupted the train service. Fortunately for us, the train ran without delay or incident.

   Upon arrival to Paris we took the Metro (subway) to the action near our hostel. We got our rooms and were soon off again taking the Metro to the Louvre Museum. The Louvre, a former royal palace, is now the World's largest museum so it was a good thing we had private tour guides to lead us directly to the highlights we wanted to see.

SLOCA student Caleb's favorite piece at The Louvre was the sculpture called "The Winged Victory." Shelby enjoyed seeing the huge painting titled "The Wedding at Cana" by Veronese.  It's hung on a wall opposite the Mona Lisa in the same room.  Most visitors ignore the ginormous "Wedding of Cana" to stare at the much smaller but more famous "Mona Lisa."

Shelby and Katie admiring art in the Louvre

The "Wedding at Cana" is the largest painting at the Louvre measuring 22'3" X 32'.

   Upon seeing the "Mona Lisa", comedic SLOCA student Corey declared, "Wow! Bulletproof glass!"

Shakespeare Day

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Editorial note:
I apologize for the backlog on posts here. We have limited wifi use and other technical difficulties getting photos to upload. We will update as we can. We are super busy and taking a multitude of photos! At some point we hope to get them posted, but it may not be until we're home.
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On Tuesday, June 30 we visited The Glive Theatre, a recreation of the theatre Shakespeare wrote for. We toured the museum and the students took part in a Shakespeare acting workshop. While they did that, the parent explored the nearby Borough Market, buying exotic food for lunch.

In the afternoon we had a guided tour of The British Museum where we saw The Rosetta Stone, sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens, Assyrian Lyon Hunt reliefs, and much more. After that we toured The Magna Carta display at The British Library. By the way, on our first day in the UK we passed by the meadow at Runnymede where King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta 800 years ago this June.

In the evening the group dined on fish and chips before heading back to The Globe Theatre. The students and parents had the chance to see a Shakespeare play performed there much as it was in Shakespeare's day.

Get Off The Road!!!

    During our walking tour of London on Monday, we positioned ourselves along the Mall, the street that leads up to Buckingham Palace.  Most people watch the Changing of the Guards ceremony in front of the palace with the foot guards mechanically marching and switching duties.  However, our guides led our two groups to a front row seat on the roadside instead of trying to squeeze us into the already packed crowd at the palace fence.  Here we were able to see the marching band and guards head up toward the palace.
     The highlight of the day was definitely the lashing a foreign tourist received right in front of our group. The street was cleared of all people, everyone had to stay up on the curb.  One daring woman, who apparently didn't understand English very well, kept venturing off the curb for photos.  Watch this video to see what happened.  In addition to this recording, one student, Gavin, was right behind the woman who got reprimanded.  They kids have laughed and laughed at his clip and they have played it over and over in the back of the bus, even setting it to music as a rap!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRfeV5ZTHQ4

The Roman Baths

     On Sunday we traveled from our first hostel at St. Briavel's Castle to London, with two important stops on the way.  The first was in the beautiful town of Bath, England.  Unfortunately we didn't have time to explore the lovely 18th and 19th century Georgian era town.  However, we did have an in-depth tour of the Roman baths (not too deep, we didn't get to dive in!)

    Today's post features a journal entry by SLOCA High School student, Caleb C. who related the visit to his studies of the Roman baths in Mrs. Weinschenk's Latin classes.

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June 28
Aquae Sulis

(The Roman Baths)

  In the morning we (Meg, Shelby & I) got up early to see if the old church across the street was open.  It wasn't, so we went on a walk around St. Briavels. It was very quiet and calm, and it was drizzling slightly.  We headed back for breakfast, and then loaded up on the bus to leave St. Briavels. We headed on to Bath.
     We pulled into Bath with its tall beige stone buildings. (They all use a special type of limestone from the area with iron in it. It's beautiful.  The baths are next to Bath Abbey - amazing building, but I think the small church in St. Briavels is still my favorite.
     Now to the actual baths- they were SO AMAZING. There were so many connections to what I've learned in Latin class. The tour guide took us through the museum and then the baths themselves. There was a 19th century building on top of the baths. The highlights for me were the temple pediments with the Gorgons head (which I drew a picture of awhile ago in Latin class while studying Aquae Sulis) the head of Sulis Minerva (the goddess worshipped at the sacred spring and baths) and the dedication stone put up by Lucius Marcius Memor (a Roman figure who comes up in Latin stories we translate from the Cambridge Latin books.) Here's kind of what it looked like (see drawing below.)
     Of course Stonehenge was awesome too, but because I had more cultural and historical context for the baths at Aquae Sulis/Bath, I enjoyed visiting them more.

 Tower of London

    Writing narratives or journal entries about the history we have read is a regular excercise for our SLOCA students. After reading a history assignment, the student summarizes what they have retained. This blog post is a narrative that soon to be 5th grader Sandy P. wrote about one of the many gory but true stories the students learned from the educator/guide at The Tower of London.

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    One day a prince was locked up in the Tower of London castle. His wife paid 600 gold coins to get him out.  The king said, "Thanks for the money, but the prince is staying."  The king put him in prison because he might want to become king.  So the prince decided to escape. He ripped off all his sheets and tied them together. He jumped out of the window but the sheets were too short, and then they broke. The next morning, guards were walking around, they saw a body but no head. They went to search for the head, but then realized it was the prince.  He had fallen and his head went inside of his body!

First Day in the UK!

We made it!  I apologize for the delay in blogging, but when you hear our schedule, you may just understand.

Our group met up in LAX on Thursday.  (A few families had already flown to London days ahead of the group.) We had the usual baggage check-in, security screening and long walk to the gate.
I tried to write from LAX but the Wifi connection was too weak.  Our group was seated together in rows 9 10 and 11 of the Boeing 787.  Every seat had its own video monitor with a selection of movies, music, games and flight tracking information.  We had dinner on the flight and then we tried to sleep. Some of us were able to sleep more than others. The flight was pleasant and smooth, with only a few small bumps over the Rockies or Great Plains.

There were no problems arriving at London Gatwick.  Everyone retrieved their luggage from baggage claim and, after a short wait, we passed through customs and got our first passport stamp for the trip!

Cindy and Caedin welcomed up to England as we came out of baggage claim and directed us to our chartered coach.  Once on board the clean and comfortable coach, we headed to Windsor Castle to stop for snacks and meet up with the other families who had arrived earlier.  Unfortunately the traffic was bottle necked on the highway!  We crept down the road for a few hours and finally reached Windsor Castle.

Windsor Castle is an iconic medieval structure where Queen Elizabeth still spends many of her weekends.  At Windsor, we were only allowed 45 minutes to walk around, take a few photos and find a snack in the surrounding town before moving on to our hostel for the night.

After a few more hours on the bus we finally reached St. Briavel's Castle! For my famliy and a few others this culminated more than 24 hours of travel time.  We had left the Central Coast on Thursday at 11:00 a.m..  By the time we arrived at our hostel It was 9:00 p.m. UK time, or 1:00 p.m. in California on Friday.

Dinner was promptly served.  The food was typically British... it lacked the flavor we are accustomed to. Following dinner we all checked into our rooms.  Some families were put into unique rooms, such as The Prison or The Oubliette.  On Saturday, we found out how scary The Oubliette (which some of us are bravely sleeping over) is!  Learn more in my next post!

First Full Day in London!

I have some students working on more stories from our time at St Briavel's Castle, and our visit to the Roman Baths in the town of Bath.  Meanwhile, I will post some photos with highlights from our non-stop busy day in London.

We started off Monday morning with our coach driver, Pepe taking us down to Westminster to meet our tour guidss.  On the way he mentioned it was his birthday so the whole bus burst into " Happy Birthday To You," of course!

We broke up into our two tour groups, mainly younger students in one group and older students in the other.  Two well-informed tour guides walked us through the streets, sharing rich stories of British history all along the way.  We love history!  We love story-tellers! We love our tour guides!

This is the east side and older section of Westminster Abbey, built in the 1500's.  This photo shows a beautiful flying buttress.  Our tour guide demonstrated to the younger students how a buttress works by having two students form an arm with their hands raised up and braced against each other.  The arch was easily pulled down.  But when two more students pushed on the backs of the two arch students, the arch was much stronger.

Our group of young students at The Houses of Parliament with The Elizabeth Tower.  We know it as Big Ben but that was never it's proper name.  It was officially re-named The Elizabeth Tower in the Queen's Jubilee celebration.  Big Ben is the nickname for the enormous bell inside the tower, it's official name is The Great Bell.  The nickname is presumed to have been in honor of the man who oversaw the installation of The Great Bell, a rotund fellow named Sir Benjamin Hall.

Here are some photos from the Tower of London where many historically famous executions took place.  It's also where the Crown Jewels are kept.  Ken and I had a chance to see the Crown Jewels and we were impressed not only with the jewels but the 18" thick steel vault doors that secure the room where they are held inside this old structure. The Tower was built by William the Conqueror to intimidate the London citizens after he had conquered the country

London is a fascinating place to study architecture.  There is a wide variety of buildings dating back 1,000 years, and they are still in use!  Every era leaves it's stamp in architecture. In the current era, any large building in London is not a basic skyscraper that goes straight.  In fact you'd be hard pressed to find a straight skyscraper here.  They build modern pyramids, modified domes, rounded obelisks, and many indescribable shapes.  This pyramid is a new skyscraper called The Shard (of Glass) and it's the tallest building in the European Union.

I love the juxtaposition of this modern sky scraper with it's intimidating lean over the old buildings below.  Someone remarked that it looks like I shot this with a fish eye lens.  Nope.  That building really gets wider and curves out on both sides at the top.  

I snapped this photo out the front window of our coach as we drove down the rainy motorway into Bath yesterday. (We only had to walk a few minutes in light rain, then it stopped.) Driving on the left side of the road is so strange.  Even the road signs appear to face the wrong direction.

Our coach driver Pepe is doing an amazing job of maneuvering this huge bus through tight London streets and parallel parking spots.  He's also full of great information on London and provides tour guide narrative as he drives.  We love Pepe and sang Happy Birthday to him today.