BFHS London and Paris Trip 2011
Twenty Ben Franklin High School students attended the English Department’s London/Paris trip this past June, chaperoned by Ms. Maher and Ms. Gill. The group was met at the airport by our guide, Tom, a recent doctoral graduate from Oxford University. For seven days in London, students toured the Tower of London, Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace, Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, the British Museum the Tate Modern, Trafalgar Square, Stonehenge, Oxford University, the Roman Baths, Big Ben, Covent Gardens, and much, much more. Tom read from Jane Austen’s Nothanger Abbey, as the group rode through the Cotswolds. After a visit to the British Library, where students saw the original manuscript of The Canterbury Tales as well as original Beatles lyrics, Tom took the group to King’s Cross and Platform 9 ¾. He read an excerpt from the first Harry Potter book, where Harry first leaves for Hogwart’s. They attended two plays at West End, “Love Never Dies” (Andrew Lloyd Webber) and “Blood Brothers.” They ate in classic English pubs (fish and chips and shepherd’s pie) and finished the last day in London with dinner at the original Hard Rock Café.
Boarding the Eurostar early the next morning, the group traveled under the English Channel and arrived in Paris just a few hours later. Spending two days in the “City of Lights,” Tom escorted them to the Latin Quarter before walking across the Ile de Cite, where they toured Notre Dame Cathedral, the Tour Eiffel, and the Shakespeare Bookstore before ending with a sunset cruise on the Seine River. Students spent several hours at the Louvre, toured a little-known Roman amphitheater in the middle of Paris, and strolled down the Champs Elysees and Arc de Triomphe. The ten-day tour ended with an exhilarating climb up the 150 steps to Montmartre for a breathtaking view of Paris from the front steps of Sacre Coeur.
Revised 8/4/11
