Central Foundation’s Year 9 and 10 French GCSE students enjoyed 3 sunny spring days in Lille last week from Monday 20th April to Wednesday 22nd April.
Our journey began bright and early when we departed on the 9am Eurostar from St Pancras to Lille, France.
After navigating metro tickets and closures, a very large French hypermarket plus the bag drop at our hostel, we finally met our tour guide, Luke, at the Place Général du Gaulle and enjoyed a fascinating tour of Lille‘s beautiful sights, featuring a very popular meringue shop enroute.
On Monday evening, we also had an authentic three course French meal at a Brasserie overlooking the Place Rihour.
On Tuesday, after breakfast at our hostel, we headed out to a local climbing wall, where we saw real courage and team work demonstrated by so many of our French students.
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Special mention goes to Edward, Abdullah, Alfie, Bertie plus our seasoned climbers Zed, Felix and Uly.
After climbing, we enjoyed a packed lunch and some students went to the famous Citadelle park to enjoy a game of football, expertly refereed by Mr Allen.
Some students enjoyed some free time in the centre of Lille to explore the shops.
We all met up again and headed to the language school where students practised their French with native French speaking teachers.
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After our language lessons on Tuesday afternoon, we navigated road closures and diversions and took the bus to a bowling alley where everyone enjoyed a game of bowling as well as pool and some arcade games.
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We all had pizza for dinner and crêpe à la Nutella or ice cream for dessert.
On Wednesday morning, after breakfast at the hostel, we walked to the Belfry to climb the 400 steps up to the top where the blue skies and sunshine provided fabulous views all around Lille!
After that, we headed to the Palais des Beaux Arts, one of France’s largest art musuem.
To buy our lunch, we headed to the Halles des Wazemmes, a covered food market where there was a delicious choice of cooked food.
To get back to the centre of Lille, we used the metro for the first time, this is a driverless system and unlike our underground in London, you see the passing metros alongside you.
It was soon time to start our journey back home, after collecting our luggage from the hostel, we braved the metro again and arrived at Eurostar check in with plenty of time to spare.
Our journey home was smooth, scenic and picturesque and we all enjoyed a sit down after a busy few days!
Thank you to all the students who made this a fabulous trip!
