Last Weekend in Paris

We are packed and on the bus by 7:30 a.m. We take a break to dump all our garbage and recycling at the end of our road before setting out for Paris. The students sleep and work on their journals. We arrive in Paris at 6 p.m. We are staying at the Au Royal Cardinal hotel across the street from the University of Sorbonne in the Latin Quarter. The area is much livelier and has a young hip feel to it. We walk into the Latin Quarter for dinner and return to our rooms by 10 p.m. A bit of an emergency when the water stops running in the entire hotel, but we manage with bottled water until service is restarted at around midnight.


6:30 in the morning	Waiting for the bus

Roadside store	Roadside store

Lunch	Lunch

Latin Quarter	Latin Quarter

Latin Quarter	Latin Quarter

Dinner	Graffiti

After our water scare the night before, the students are glad they can take showers in the morning. Breakfast is delivered to our individual rooms: the usual, croissant, baguette, coffee or hot chocolate. We hit the streets at 9:30 a.m. and walk from our hotel to the Louvre by way of Notre Dame and Rue Rivoli before hopping on the metro to Champs Elysee. We leave the students here in their groups with their plans for the day. Many have chosen to go shopping. They check in with us by phone and in person at 3 p.m. We reconvene at 7:30 and walk to Santorini, a French/Greek restaurant for a tasty three course meal. After dinner we visit Notre Dame and watch street performers. We are in our rooms and beds by midnight.

After a day of shopping and touristy pursuits, it is time for some course work. We begin the day with a walk to Shakespeare and Co., the famous English bookstore in the Latin Quarter. The students wander through the store that Ernest Hemingway frequented as a young man in Paris. Many buy books for themselves and as presents for others. In a park nearby, we write about our shopping experiences: is consumerism the new religion? Champs Elysee the new pilgrimage? We proceed to the back garden of Notre Dame where the students sketch flying buttresses. After a walk to the Centre Pompidou, we break for lunch. After lunch some students journey to the hot streets of the Champs Elysee and are rewarded with a great view of the final laps of the Tour de France. We hold our final dinner on the terrasse of an Italian restaurant a stone's throw from the Seine and Notre Dame. Post-diner we light candles, write postcards, and toast Paris on the banks of the Seine.

Students spend time visiting some last haunts of Paris before we take a shuttle to the airport at 3:30 in the afternoon. They have become seasoned travelers, comfortable with walking miles and taking the metro in Paris.