In May last year a group of P7 pupils and staff spent a week in a French château. It was the first time we had ever been abroad on a school trip and everyone had a wonderful time.
Château de Chantereine is in a small fishing village outside Criel-sur-Mer, near Dieppe on the north coast of France. This area of France is right in the middle of the Normandy / Picardy regions. You may have been here on holiday yourself. Normandy has a very long and fascinating history and the area has lots of stunning scenery. Many WWI and WWII battle sites are in this part of France. The local town of Criel-sur-Mer has many traditional French shops and a beautiful beach which are all just a short walk from the Château.
The Château is owned by the local villagers who run it themselves like a sort of youth hostel. Every day they prepare, make and serve all of the food themselves and look after the guests. Most of the Château is used for adventure holidays like ours but while we were there, we did meet some French people who were also visiting the area and staying in the Château.
Here's a diary of our week...
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lundi:
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We left Cockenzie at midnight on Sunday and headed south to cross the English Channel. After what felt like forever, we reached Maidstone in Kent, just a few miles away from the Eurostar terminal where we would board the cross-channel train. Each carriage was long enough to hold 8 or 9 vehicles. Because of strict safety rules, we weren't allowed to move away from our coach but that didn't matter...once we got going, the entire journey took only 25 minutes - barely long enough for us to take our seat belts off! You can't see any water because the train goes through a tunnel deep under the Channel. The entrance to the tunnel actually starts a few miles away from the water.
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Inside the Eurostar
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We arrived at Calais and had to change our watches to be 1 hour ahead the same as local French time. We drove to Boulogne where we were going to stop for lunch on the way to Château de Chantereine. France seemed very flat compared to all the Scottish hills we were used to and it felt much warmer! Boulogne was over 30ºC! We had lunch in a local park and visited a large sea-life aquarium called Nausicaa.
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It was 4.30pm French time and we were all quite tired after the travelling. We were introduced to Tommy and Marie our instructors for the week and they showed us around the Château. After dinner and lots of unpacking, we played some team games on the sports field. We got to share a dormitory with 3 or 4 of our friends.
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mardi:
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We travelled east to visit some WWI battle sites. First stop was the town of Arras near the border with Belgium. Here we went into the underground bunkers used by British and Australian soldiers during wartime when the town was under seige. We saw lots of displays about the soldiers' living conditions and compared the equipment of the German and Allied soldiers would have used. The museum even showed examples of real letters that troops sent home to their families and loved ones.
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On to Vimy Ridge for a walk through some of the WWI trenches which have been preserved as a memorial. You can still see huge craters in the ground where mines have exploded and bombs dropped. Tommy was able to explain a lot about the war as he used to be a paratrooper.
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Our last stop for the day was the Canadian War Memorial. We all had a tear in our eye when we saw all the names engraved on the monument and the ages of the soldiers who had been killed. Some people found their own surname and there were 11,000 names just of soldiers whose bodies had never been found. Driving back to the Château we saw row after row of gravestones. It was a very emotional day.
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mercredi:
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A full day in the city of Rouen the capital of Normandy, famous for its beautiful architecture and steeped in history. The buildings look very old and the streets are twisty and narrow. We had some shopping time on the high street with its decorative golden clock.
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We visited the famous Rouen cathedral which during Victorian times was the tallest building in the world. Lots of artists including Monet have painted pictures of Rouen cathedral. Some of the stained glass windows are 700 years old. The rose windows and stone carvings tell important stories. Inside we saw the tomb of Richard the Lionheart which is supposed to contain his heart. A large part of the cathedral was damaged by bombing during WWII.
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The Ossuary looks very pretty now but this was where all the bodies of the plague victims were kept in the middle ages. It was a huge job to look after all the corpses. As many as two thirds of the population died from plague and the bodies were stacking up quicker than they could be buried. Corpses were mixed together in a large hole in the ground and covered in lime to make them decompose quicker. The bones were then collected and buried. 500 years ago a superstitious builder buried alive a black cat in the walls of the ossuary to ward off any evil spirits. You can still see the dried out skeleton near the entrance. All around the courtyard, you can see carvings of skulls, crossbones and gravediggers' tools. Nowadays the Ossuary is a gallery of modern art.
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Joan of Arc is a national heroine in France. She helped the French army to win some important battles in their war against the English. The famous Joan of Arc church is shaped like a helmet because Joan was a warrior. This is one of many catholic churches in France. When she was just 19 years old, Joan was captured by the English and put on trial for witchcraft. Many people thought she was a witch because she talked about having strange dreams. Behind the church is the exact spot where she and many other martyrs (people who die for what they believe in) were burnt alive.
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Joan of Arc Church
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jeudi:
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Thursday was an exciting day. We went to the nearby town of Eu to visit a traditional French bakery. The bakers had been up since 4am and had almost finished their days work when we arrived after breakfast. The master baker showed us how he made French bread. Next we tried our hand at making croissants and pain au chocolat which are traditionally eaten for breakfast. The bakers only spoke French but we could understand most things they said by watching what they were doing as well as listening.
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A French plaît
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400 before we'd even had breakfast!
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Only a 1000 more to go boys!
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The chocolate batons were very tasty too!
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In the afternoon, we visited a local cheese farm at Neufchatel. The tasty heart shaped cheese is made on the farm using traditional methods. The owner of the farm showed us step by step how the cheese is made using milk from their own dairy cows.
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First you needed to add some 'old' cheese to the milk to start the curdling process
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After the milk and 'old' cheese have started to develop, they need to be strained to get rid of the extra liquid
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The 'new' cheese is kneaded together into a firm ball
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Cutters are used to shape the cheese which is then left to form a delicate mould skin
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Et voila! The finished Neufchatel cheese!
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French Night:
For dinner that evening we were given traditional local foods such as snails in garlic and frogs legs, which strangely enough, didn't taste anything like chicken! After our meal it was time for our farewell disco which we shared with children from other schools who were staying at the Château. Then it was time for packing and an early night in preparation for our visit to the Hypermarché.
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Some of the teachers were brave enough to try new things too!
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We played 'boules' a traditional French game played in every village
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