Pupils enjoy a jam-packed schedule in Montpellier trip

Angus P (PH, IV) reflects on a successful MFL trip to Montpellier for Fourth and Fifth Formers. 

"Our journey to Montpellier started in the most surprising way possible, as one of the group brought a rather odd piece of luggage, Mr. Farmer was surprised to find a cello in the luggage bay of the coach. He was pretty sure that it was outside easyJet’s luggage allowance. Luckily, Evans’ guardians picked up the cello at Gatwick. 

"Very early the next morning, our trip really began with a flight to Montpellier airport where we all met our guardians, who were all lovely and welcoming. The rest of the day was spent getting to know our bearings and getting to know our hosts over supper. As we explored, we discovered the town itself to be very quaint with open public squares, ice cream shops, and old buildings which made it very attractive for tourists like us. 

"Sunday was our first proper first sight-seeing day, so we decided to go to Nime which contained a rather large and impressive Roman amphitheatre. And because the weather was rather hot, some of us decided to treat ourselves to a lovely ice cream, during which I had a very tricky time trying to prevent my ice cream melting in the blazing sun! And that’s why we have napkins! 

"The rest of the week followed a different pattern with intense language school in the morning and activities in the afternoon (except from Monday where we had language school all day). The lessons were different to lessons back here. For instance, the lessons were much longer and more focused on speaking and listening to the language, meaning that we could practise speaking new phrases and techniques to our hosts when we got back home for supper. On Tuesday however, before we set off on an adventure to the beach,  we grabbed ring-side seats to one of the angry French protests. When we got to the beach we decided that we were going to brave the depths of the Atlantic. After that, a few of us played an impromptu game of football. 

"One particular highlight of the trip was our trip to visit some caves in Aniane. When braving the depths of the cave itself, we stumbled upon very nice ores of quartz and very nice views and structures of dripstone. That marked the last of our adventures, meaning that all that was left of the trip was to get home in one piece. To most, this would be seen as a very simple task, but while we were in Montpellier airport excited to see our families, we discovered that one of our brave adventurers Freddy had left his passport on the bus almost half an hour after arriving. Despite that, we were able to safely get back home to Shrewsbury.

"At this point, we’d like to say we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and that we’d also like to say thank you to Mrs. Livingstone, Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Farmer who organized the trip and of course our amazing host families."