2024 French Language and Culture Tour Report

Presented in assembly by Kieran Gill, Ashton Blinkhorne and Jonathan Peel

The tour started on the 30th of March when we took a flight to Auckland. Just hours later, we were boarding the seventeen hour long flight to Dubai, followed by a quick layover and then another seven hour flight to Barcelona, which concluded around twenty-five long hours of travelling.

We arrived in Barcelona at around 1:30 pm and we then jumped straight onto a bus for a panoramic city tour of Barcelona where we were able to discover many of the city's famous landmarks. Checking into our hotel later that day was welcomed, as many of us were weary and jet lag was setting in by this stage.

The next day was another long travel day, but this time by bus from Barcelona, Spain, to the city of Tarbes in the South of France. Throughout the journey we could see the beautiful European landscapes and the snow covered Pyrenees mountains. At around 6:30 pm that evening we met our homestay families who we were going to spend the next seven nights with. Our exchange was with a high school in Tarbes called Lycée Général Théophile-Gautier.

Our first day in Tarbes was spent at the school where we went to class with our homestay, experiencing the French school system accompanied with having lunch at their school canteen. The canteens in French schools are different from the canteens in New Zealand schools. Most students eat daily at the canteen which serves salads and hot food, dessert, yoghurt and cheeses. They are also usually given one and half to two hours for lunch (lunch is the main meal of the day in France). They spend the majority of that time either eating in the canteen and talking to each other over lunch, rather than playing games such as football, basketball or handball like we do here at school during our lunch break.

Our third day in Tarbes was spent at another high school, called Lycée Agricole de Pau Montardon. This is a high school that specialises in agriculture and farming. We were shown how they cut and process different meats at the school, followed by a tour of the school grounds. When we arrived back, someone said in a loud voice: “Is that Sam Whitelock?” We turned around to see both Sam and Luke Whitelock at the school, which was insane seeing them in a small town in France!  But, they weren’t just there to see us. They both play for the Pau Rugby Club who play in France’s premier rugby division. We were fortunate enough to have a good conversation with them over the school’s canteen lunch. Funnily enough, they seemed pretty happy to talk to some kiwis from Palmy for what would’ve been the first time in a while for them.

The weekend was spent with our homestays where many of us watched the Pau vs Connacht game and where we had the chance to see and meet well known players like Bundee Aki. Many of us were also taken to nearby places such as Saint-Jean-de-Luz on the Atlantic coast, and the city of Toulouse which is the fourth largest city in France.

The second week of the tour started off with a five-and-a-half-hour coach drive from Tarbes to the city of Tours. Many of the boys were emotional having to depart ways with their homestays which made the drive seem longer than it was. After a few toilet and food stops, we arrived in Tours. As we progressed further north of France, the country changed drastically. The style of building was different, and the shape of the landscape had completely changed.​ We arrived at our hotel in Tours fatigued and eager for some sleep.

The next day we departed our hotel early in the morning with a day of castles ahead of us. Our first castle was Château de Chambord. We had a tour guide accompany us for the day and she explained the features of the castles and the history of the Loire Valley, throughout our journey. Château de Chambord was used for hunting accommodation, therefore, rarely occupied which shows how rich the Kings and Queens of France were. Afterwards we went to the Château de Chenonceau which was perched upon the Loire river. On the last part of our day trip we visited Le Clos-Lucé, where Leonardo da Vinci spent a lot of his time. It was cool knowing that da Vinci once walked the same floors as we did that day. That marked the end of our activities and we made the trip back to the hotel.

After we left Tours, we started heading towards Paris. We made a two-and-a-half-hour bus drive to the Château de Versailles. Most of the boys were excited to arrive in Versailles because of how well known it is. Once there, the boys were eager to lay eyes upon the infamous Château de Versailles. We proceeded to have a self-guided tour around the inside of the Château. We all had prior knowledge of Château de Versailles as we had studied some of the history of France throughout our coursework in the classroom. The Château de Versailles exceeded our expectations and we were all amazed by the sheer size of the paintings and statues that adorned the ornate rooms. Afterwards, we toured the immense gardens and grounds of the palace, before boarding the bus again to travel to the other side of Paris.

Driving through Paris we passed a vast amount of very famous monuments, like the La Tour Eiffel, Stade Parc des Princes and more. It seemed as if the boys were very excited to see these monuments by the shouts of enthusiasm, after we drove past each one.​ This was all on the way to meeting our second set of homestays, in Courbevoie, Paris. Despite the common conception about Parisiens maybe being rude and grumpy, we found them to be very nice and welcoming. The homestay families put in a lot of outstanding effort to make our time in Paris fun, enjoyable and real cultural experience.

During our five day stay in Paris we visited many infamous monuments, places and museums. For example La Tour Eiffel, Musée du Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Champs-Élysées, Les Invalides (containing Napoleon's tomb), Arc de Triomphe, Les Jardins de Tuileries, Stade Français and more. It was really nice to see these monuments and places in person; this whole trip was an amazing experience.

After having already experienced great times hanging out with the homestays and discovering the sites of the South in Tarbes, experiencing the French school system and then experiencing the excitement and craziness of Paris, the start of the third week of the tour brought a different pace again. We travelled around historic World War sites in northern France and into Belgium. The weather reflected this change as well, as it was cold and wet for the first time since the tour began - it had been hot and sunny in Tarbes, Tours, and Paris.

On our first day travelling north from Paris we had a lunch stop in the city of Amiens. There we saw and visited the Cathédrale Notre-Dame d’Amiens, which is the largest cathedral in the whole of France and was built in the 13th century. To put the size into perspective, its spire is 113 metres tall, over three times the height of the clock tower, and twice the size of the Cathédrael Notre Dame de Paris.

Next we travelled to Arras, where we would be staying the night. On the way to Arras we were lucky enough to visit the Thiepval memorial to the missing, where Joanthan Peel’s Great Great Great Uncle, Tom Parry is commemorated along with over 72,000 other soldiers, who died at the battle of the Somme.

In Arras we visited the Carrière Wellington memorial, where New Zealand soldiers dug tunnels in preparation for the largest surprise attack of the First World War. This was a pretty haunting experience, seeing where many soldiers spent their final days and nights on earth.

After Arras we travelled to Ypres in Belgium and on the way we stopped off at the Bailleul Commonwealth Cemetery, so both Thomas Revell and Ben Irwin could visit the grave of their Great Great Great Uncles.

The amazing thing about Ypres is that while it was completely flattened during the war, by 1923 it was almost completely rebuilt. In the evening of our first night in Ypres, we had the honour of attending the famous last post ceremony at the Menin Gate where we performed the haka.

For our second day in Ypres we had a full guided bus tour around the battlefields of Flanders. We visited several preserved trenches, and stopped off at many graveyards and memorials along the way, including those of three PNBHS Old Boys' at Messines Ridge. What struck everyone was that there were literally hundreds of cemeteries dotted around the countryside, each containing anywhere between a hundred and tens of thousands of soldiers.

Overall, it is thought that our time spent visiting the battlefields of World War One was possibly the most important bit of the tour. It put into perspective the sheer scale of the war and made this year’s ANZAC service even more meaningful.

We spent the final two days of the tour doing last-minute activities and souvenir shopping around Paris. On our first day back in Paris we visited the Musée Carnavalet, where we learnt about the history of Paris from the Stone Age right through to modern times. We then headed to Hôtel des Invalides to see the tomb of Napoleon. It is also a military museum, so we saw hundreds of suits of armour used by the French military and Kings throughout the centuries.

Finally, on the last day of the tour, we went to Galeries Lafayette - an absurdly expensive department store in the centre of Paris, before we headed to the airport for the long journey home.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who made this once in a lifetime trip possible, to those involved in the fundraising efforts, to the school for this opportunity, and especially to Mrs Belton, Mr Ramiroz and Mr Dawson who have spent many hours planning the trip and for giving up their personal time and time with their families to spend three weeks abroad with us. Merci beaucoup.