Group dinner restaurant
We’ve been planning for this day for 2 semesters. It’s the day that our students arrive to begin their study abroad experience! We have a welcome dinner planned for this evening at a French café and lots of activities planned for the week. Here’s a preview of our adventures. Be sure to check back for student posts about the excursions!
Monday:
Musée de l’Armée – Département des Deux Guerre Mondiales (Army Museum – Department of the Two World Wars.) Housed in Les Invalides, this museum will be our introduction to the two wars we will be studying during the trip.
Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Elysées. We will be meeting under the famous Parisian landmark and “reading” the memorial.
Tuesday:
All day trip to the Somme region. We will be taking a guided tour of the World War I battlefields in this region as well as visiting the Historial de Péronne (museum) and various cemeteries and memorials dedicated to French, German, American, British, and Canadian soldiers. This promises to be an intense day!
Wednesday:
Walking tour of Père-Lachaise Cemetery. We will visit the war memorials in this famous cemetery. We are especially interested in the series of sculptures related to the Nazi concentration and death camps.
The Louvre. We will take a tour of the museum to see the famous masterpieces that the French evacuated for safekeeping during World War II. We have viewed the documentary The Rape of Europa, which explains the looting and protection of French art during the war.
Thursday:
We will finish up our study of World War I by visiting the site where the official treaty with Germany was signed: Versailles. The Treaty of Versailles (1919) was signed in the famous Hall of Mirrors and would have consequences for the future.