Soaking up French culture in Nice
Senior School
“ Spending three days in Nice was such a wonderful opportunity for the students and it was fantastic to see them making the most of it. They have enjoyed exploring the city, discovering French culture and soaking up the atmosphere of Nice and Monaco. The film premiere was a particular highlight of the trip!”Madame Daguenet
On the first day our students explore the old town (Le Vieux Nice) and spent some time wandering around the beautiful Flower market. We then walk along the beach to the harbour where we visited a sweet factory and shop where they make the famous candied fruits and crystalized flowers. It was then time to buy lunch locally and after we walked the Colline du Château, not much remains of the castle but the students enjoyed the green space and a wealth of stunning views over the old town, the port and inland to the Provençal hills all the way to the Alps. After a long day walking, we spent some time at the beach, enjoying the view and the beautiful weather with an ice-cream.
On Thursday we took the train to Monaco where we explored the harbour, Monte-Carlo with his famous Art-Deco Casino and luxury shops, cafés and hotels. After lunch, we explored the Rocher where you can see the Prince’s Palace and we went to the Oceanographic museum. It was a rainy afternoon but that didn’t let dampen our spirits and we were lucky that some girls entertained us (and everyone around) with playing the piano at the train station.
On our final day, we took a bus to the Cimiez area to visit Matisse Museum and the Roman ruins where we sat and had our lunch in the sunshine. We then travel back to the city center where girls were given free time for shopping.
Finally, we attended a film premiere in the evening where we were lucky enough to meet and ask questions to the director.
You can read highlights from the girls below and more images can be viewed in our Flickr album.
“ I really enjoyed the trip to Nice, I liked that we were able to visit Monaco as well because it is a really nice state. Thank you very much.”MarÃa
“ My highlight of the trip was definitely the film premiere – it was so nice being able to finally understand a film entirely in French, and meeting the director afterwards was fascinating!”Maddie
“ My highlight of the Nice trip was going to the beach, because as we live in the UK there isn't many opportunities to enjoy great weather and the beach at the same time, it was also very relaxing and peaceful.”Dash
“ Thank you for an amazing time in France; I really enjoyed everything. Nice is such a lovely place and it was fun going to the beach, shopping and visiting Monaco. My overall highlights were: the oceanographic museum which gave us the chance to see sharks up close alongside turtles! The cinema to watch 'Mon Heroïne' gave us the opportunity to listen to lots of French and I was so happy that I understood it! Finally, it was great to be able to speak French with the actress after the film and have our picture with her.”Ophelia
“ I loved the trip to Nice especially the last day where we were able to go off on our own and explore the city with our friends, buying whatever we wanted and going to the cinema in the evening was really fun where we met the producer of the film la Heroine which was a super interesting and different experience. On the first proper day in Nice we stayed on the beach which I found very relaxing after walking around and so these were my highlights, but I loved every day in Nice and Thank you so much to the teachers for giving us this great opportunity and cultural experience and I would definitely come back to Nice again in the future.”Jasmine
“ My highlight of the Nice trip has got to be the Avant-premiere of ‘Mon Heroine’ because the movie itself was so funny and entertaining and it was so cool to meet the director Noémie Lefort and Brigitte Fossey. It was so cool to be immersed around French people and hear the language being spoken.”Coco
“ My trip highlight was going to the Musée Matisse because I loved his style of art and discovering more about him. I also loved going to the ocean museum because I saw lots of new types of animals that I'd never seen before which was very interesting and I especially enjoyed seeing the sharks and turtles.”Amélie
“ My favourite part of the trip was eating ice creams on the beach in the evening sun and looking around Monaco because I found it really interesting to see all the landmarks there.”Flora
“ My highlight was the cinema, seeing the director and being able to watch a movie in French, and walking around and seeing Nice!”Minna
“ My highlight of Nice was exploring Monaco and Monte Carlo.”Bea
“ My highlight was eating lunch on the Cimiez amphitheatre ruins in the sun– c’était très beau et j'ai hâte d'y retourner un jour.”Catherine
“ My highlight of the trip was definitely the film premiere – it was so nice being able to finally understand a film entirely in French, and meeting the director afterwards was fascinating!”Maddie
“ I really enjoyed walking around the city of Nice, because the architecture was particularly beautiful. Going to places like the flower market and museums allowed us to explore more French culture, and most of all the food was amazing!”Ellie
“ My highlight of the trip was going to the cinema, I really enjoyed the film and understood almost all of it! It was also great to see the director and actress in real life.”Karah
“ My highlight: going to see the film - it was really fun!”Harriet
“ Thank you for planning this splendid trip, it was my first time to France and it was amazing, I really enjoyed it. I think I particularly liked the second day, the day where we strolled around nice and sat at the beach at the end. The weather was gorgeous, and the architectures were really inspiring, I gained lots of ideas for my illustration backgrounds and took lots of photos. This was a trip that was worth going to, once again thank you so much for planning it.”Charlotte
“ I really enjoyed when we went to the beach because it was sunny, and we had ice-cream. I also liked going to the aquarium in Monaco because the view of the sea was really pretty. ”Kshama
“ I really liked the garden in Monte Carlo because it was very pretty. I also thought the views in Monaco were cool, and it was interesting to learn about the place. ”Shreya
“ I really enjoyed walking around the city of Nice, because the architecture was particularly beautiful. Going to places like the flower market and museums allowed us to explore more French culture, and most of all the food was amazing!”Ellie
“ I enjoyed the nice trip very much, I had so much fun and learnt a lot of stuff. Especially I like the part that we went to Monaco and went to an ocean museum, it was so nice there.”Yannes
“ My favourite part of the Nice trip was eating lunch that we had bought from mono prix in the Roman ruins in the sun.”Amelie