While our students continue to get to know Toulouse and its surrounding area, as well as other destinations in Europe, we traveled to the capital during the break in February in the hopes that an academic excursion to Paris would help our students better understand the environment in which they find themselves until the end of May, while focusing on the binary Paris-Province.
In order to better orient ourselves in Paris, we started with a tour on the Seine in a ‘bateau-mouche’, which takes a turn around the Ile de la Cité, passing by the most important and well known monuments.
On the bateau-mouche our first evening in Paris.
We ended our first day in Paris with a dinner at the Grand Mosquée de Paris where we ate delicious and copious couscous and tagines.
A delicious lamb and prune tagine at the restaurant of the Grande Mosquée de Paris. Photo by Mira Hanfling.
The next morning we visited the Musée Carnavalet, which is the museum about the history of Paris. Our visit discussed the evolution of the city from the first traces of civilization in Lutèce, to the Revolution(s), to Haussmann’s renovation of the city, to the Belle Époque.
That evening we attended the Opéra Bastille to see Pelléas et Mélisande, a tragedy about an impossible love. Built in the eighties, its architecture is rather modern.
The Opéra Bastille. Photo by Caitlin DeFazio.
Friday morning we continued our exploration of the arts at the Centre Pompidou, where we visited a contemporary art exposition. The works were not always easy to understand, however our guide was excellent and encouraged our students to share their interpretations.
The afternoon we concluded our guided tours at City Hall, the municipal headquarters since 1357 that today includes the General Council, since Paris is in fact the only city in France to be a city and a department at the same time.
It seemed that Dickinson in France and TFC had similar schedules this past month seeing as how Toulouse’s football club was in Paris to play the same weekend as Dickinson ! Unfortunately, TFC was unable to defeat PSG, but some of our students went to the match anyway to support our purple and white !
Toulouse fans at the game in Paris! Photo de Hannah Matlack.
The students took advantage of a bit of free time to visit and enjoy the sites and neighborhoods that interested them the most. Here’s what they visited :
Sacre-Coeur in Montmartre. Photo by Gabriel Chong-Ling.
The door of Versailles. Photo by Olivia Calcaterra.
Le Grand Foyer at the Palais Garnier. Photo by Caitlin DeFazio.
Opéra Garnier. Photo by Caitlin DeFazio.
Climbing the Eiffel Tower! Photo by Gabriel Chong-Ling.