Highlights of the 2009 Program
Scroll through the page to read about some of the interesting sites you'll see...
The France Study Abroad program in 2009 will feature a host family stay (one week) with families from Hammond's twin city in France: Jouars-Pontchartrain. This is the lodging that students enjoy the most. We will have a total of 6 nights with a host family at the beginning of our trip followed by 10 nights at the FIAP (international dorm) in Paris.
This gives us plenty of time to visit all the most famous monuments and museums of Paris, such as the Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Musée Rodin, Musée du Moyen Age, Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Sainte-Chapelle, Panthéon, Montmartre, and the Arc de Triomphe.
In addition, we will make three day trips from Paris: the city of Reims (the magnificent cathedrale where the kings of France were crowned, the tomb of Clovis, the first French king, and a visit to a champagne cave); two castles of the Loire Valley; and Monet's Gardens.
After Paris, we will take the train to Avignon where we will stay in a youth hostel on an island in the Rhone River, facing the Palace of the Popes. July is the month of the huge theater and arts festival in Avignon and we will take in a show, visit the Palace of the Popes, and enjoy this bustling city! We will take two day trips from here: Nîmes (the Roman temple "La Maison Carrée", the arena and the Pont du Gard Acqueduct) and Saintes-Marie-de-la-Mer (the gypsy capital of France - Church with the tomb of Saint Sara & Mediterranean Sea beach, the Camargue - swamp are with flamingos, bulls, and white horses).
That's it! The program ends here on July 27 with a train trip back to the Charles de Gaulle airport. You can either go home or continue to travel on your own. In either even, you are sure to return with lots of wonderful memories!
Scroll down this page for some pictures and more information about some of the famous sites!
Monet's Gardens, 2007
Paris
Paris is the capital of France and the country's largest city. The name Paris is derived from the Gaulish tribe known as the Parisii. The city was called Lutetia during the Roman occupation but,
during the reign of Julian the Apostate in the 4th Century, the city was renamed Paris.
The earliest archaeological signs of permanent habitation in the Paris area date from around 4200 BC. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, known as boatsmen and traders, inhabited the area near the river Seine from around 250 BC. The Romans conquered the Paris basin in 52 BC. It expanded over the following centuries, becoming a prosperous city with a forum, palaces, baths, temples, theatres and an amphitheatre.
"Modern" Paris is the result of a vast mid-19th century urban remodelling. Beginning in 1852, entire quarters were levelled to make way for wide avenues lined with neo-classical stone buildings; most of this is the Paris seen today. These plans are in many cases still applied today, as the city is still imposing the "alignement" law (building facades placed according to a pre-defined street width) on many new constructions. A building's height was also defined according to the width of the street it lines, and Paris' building code has seen few changes since the mid-19th century to allow for higher constructions. It is for this reason that Paris is mainly a "flat" city.
Jouars-Pontchartrain
For an interesting look at Hammond's "sister city", click here for a PDF history of the area...
Bateau-Mouche
Bateaux Mouches are open excursion boats that provide visitors to Paris, France with a view of the city from along the river Seine.
These boats are popular tourist attractions in Paris. Many seat several hundred people, often with an open upper deck and an enclosed lower deck; some have sliding canopies that can close to protect the open deck in inclement weather. Most boat tours include a live or recorded commentary on the sights along the river. A typical cruise lasts about one hour. Many companies offer lunch and dinner cruises as well. Most boats are equipped with lights to illuminate landmarks in the evening.
Since the Seine is centrally situated in Paris, a boat tour covers a great deal of the city. Both the Left Bank and the Right Bank, are visible from the boat. Passengers can see, among other sites, the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Alexander III Bridge, the Pont Neuf, the Orsay Museum, and the Louvre Museum. Passengers can also see Les Invalides, Napoleon's burial site.
Eiffel Tower
Click here for the Eiffel Tower's official website...
Notre Dame
Notre Dame la Paris is a Gothic cathedral in Paris, France. It is the cathedral of Paris and the seat of the Archbishop of that city. Notre Dame is widely considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture. It was restored and saved from destruction by Viollet-le-Duc, one of France's most famous architects. The name Notre Dame means "Our Lady" in French.
Notre Dame was among the first buildings in the world to use the flying buttress [arched exterior supports]. The building was not originally designed to include the flying buttresses around the choir and nave. After the construction began and the thinner walls (popularized in the Gothic style) grew ever higher, stress fractures began to occur as the walls pushed outward. In response, the cathedral's architects built supports around the outside walls.
The cathedral suffered desecration during the radical phase of the French Revolution in the 1790s, when much of its religious imagery was damaged or destroyed. During the 19th century, an extensive restoration project was completed, returning the cathedral to its previous state.
Quartier Latin
The Latin Quarter of Paris (Quartier Latin) is situated on the left bank of the River Seine, around the Sorbonne University.
Known for its lively atmosphere and bistros, the Latin Quarter is the home to a number of higher education establishments besides the university itself.
The area gets its name from the Latin language, which, as the international language of learning in the Middle Ages, was once widely spoken in and around the University.
Panthéon
The Panthéon is a building in the Latin Quarter in Paris, France. It was originally built as a church dedicated to St. Genevieve, but is also a famous mausoleum.
King Louis XV vowed in 1744 that if he recovered from an illness he would replace the ruined church of Sainte-Geneviève with an edifice worthy of the patron saint of Paris.
The foundations were laid in 1758, but due to financial problems, it wasn't completed until 1789. As it was completed, the new Revolutionary government ordered it to be changed from a church to a mausoleum for the interment of great Frenchmen.
In 1851, physicist Léon Foucault demonstrated the rotation of the Earth by his experiment in the Panthéon, by constructing a 67 meter Foucault pendulum beneath the central dome. In 2006, Ernesto Neto, a Brazilian artist, installed "Léviathan Thot", which was inspired by the biblical monster. The art installation was in the Pantheon from September 15, 2006, until October 31 for Paris' Autumn Festival.
Jardins de Monet
Click here for a link to the Giverny web site...
Arc de Triomphe
Its design was inspired by the Roman Arch of Titus. The Arc de Triomphe is so colossal that three weeks after the Paris victory parade in 1919, marking the end of hostilities in World War I, Charles Godefroy flew his Nieuport biplane through it, with the event captured in a newsreel.
Bastille Day
Bastille Day is the French national holiday, celebrated on 14 July each year . In France, it is called Fête Nationale ("National Celebration"), or more commonly quatorze juillet ("14 July"). It commemorates the 1790 Fête de la Fédération, held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789. Festivities are held the morning of 14 July, the largest on the Champs-Élysées avenue in Paris in front of the President of the Republic.
Champs-Elysées
The Avenue des Champs-Élysées is the most prestigious avenue in Paris, With its cinemas, cafés, and luxury specialty shops. The Avenue des Champs-Élysées is one of the most famous streets in the world and it remains the most expensive strip of real estate in Europe. The name is French for Elysian Fields, the place of the blessed in Greek mythology.
The Champs-Elysées were originally fields and market gardens until 1616, when Marie de Medici decided to extend the garden axis of the Palais des Tuileries with an avenue of trees.
The Champs-Elysées itself became city property in 1828, and footpaths, fountains, and gas lighting were added. Over the years, the avenue has undergone numerous transitions, most recently in 1994, when the sidewalks were widened.
The Avenue des Champs-Elysées, because of its size and proximity to several Parisian landmarks such as the Arc de Triomphe, has been the site of several notable military parades, the most infamous of which were the march of German troops celebrating the Fall of France on June 14, 1940 and the subsequent entrance of Free French and American forces into the city after its liberation on August 25, 1944.
Musée Rodin
The Musée Rodin is a museum in the Hôtel Biron and surrounding grounds. Opened in 1919, it displays works by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin.
Rodin used the Hôtel Biron as his residence from 1908, and subsequently donated his entire collection of sculptures, along with paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, to the French State on the condition that they turn the building into a museum dedicated to his works.
The Musée Rodin contains most of Rodin's significant creations, including "The Thinker" and "The Kiss".
Les Invalides
Les Invalides is a complex of buildings containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans, which was the building's original purpose. The buildings house the Musée de l'Armée, the military museum of the Army of France, the Musée des Plans-Reliefs, and the Musée d'Histoire Contemporaine, as well as the burial site for some of France's war heroes.
The most notable tomb at Les Invalides is that of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821).
The Louvre
Click here to visit the Louvre's official web site...
la Sainte-Chapelle
The Sainte-Chapelle, the palatine chapel in the courtyard of the royal palace on the Île de la Cité, was built to house precious relics: Christ's crown of thorns, the Image of Edessa and thirty other relics of Christ that had been in the possession of Louis IX since August 1239, when it arrived from Venice in the hands of two Dominican friars. Unlike many devout aristocrats, who swiped relics, the saintly Louis bought his precious relics of the Passion, purchased from the Latin emperor at Constantinople for the exorbitant sum of 135,000 livres. In 1241 a piece of the True Cross and other relics were added. Even the stonework was painted, with medallions of saints and martyrs.
Musée du Moyen Age
Click here to visit the official web site for the Musée du Moyen Age...
Reims
Reims played a very important role in French history, as it was the place where the kings of France were crowned. The most famous and cherished of these events was the coronation of Charles VII in the company of Joan of Arc. Thus, the Cathedral of Reims (damaged by the Germans during the First World War but restored since) played the same role in France as Westminster Abbey did in England. It was there that was kept the Holy Ampulla (Sainte Ampoule) containing the Saint Chrême (chrism), which was said to have been brought by a white dove (the Holy Spirit) at the baptism of Clovis in 496, and was used for the anointing, the most important part of the coronation of French kings.
Reims is often considered as the capital of Champagne, an old province of France, world-famous for its sparkling wine (Champagne).
Sacré Coeur
The project to build the Sacré-Coeur Basilica on Montmartre (Basilica of the Sacred Heart) was initiated by a group of influential people who had pledged to build a church if Paris escaped unscathed from the war with the Prussians, and a competition was organized. The goal was to build an imposing basilica true to Christian traditions.
The winner of the competition was Paul Abadie, who had already restored two cathedrals in France.
Montmartre
Montmartre is a hill , giving its name to the surrounding district. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district. The other, older, church on the hill is Saint Pierre de Montmartre, which claims to be the location at which the Jesuit order of priests was founded. Many artists had studios or worked around the community of Montmartre such as Salvador Dalí, Modigliani, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh.
Montmartre, signifying 'mountain of the martyr', owes this name to the martyrdom of Saint Denis, who was decapitated on the hill around 250 AD. Saint Denis was the Bishop of Paris and is the patron saint of France.
The hill's religious symbolism is thought to be even older, as it has been suggested as a likely druidic holy place because it is the highest point in the area. No archeological evidence supports the claim.
There is a memorial sign on one of the restaurants on Montmartre that says: On 30 March 1814 - here the Cossacks first launched their famous "Bistro" and thus on this summit occurred the worthy ancestor of our Bistros.
Since Montmartre was outside the city limits, free of Paris taxes and no doubt also due to the fact that the local nuns made wine, the hill quickly became a popular drinking area. The area developed into a center of free-wheeling and decadent entertainment at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. In the popular cabaret the Moulin Rouge, and at Le Chat Noir, artists, singers and performers regularly appeared.
The Basilica of the Sacré Cœur was built on Montmartre from 1876 to 1912 by public subscription as a gesture of expiation after the defeat of 1871 in the Franco-Prussian War. Its white dome is a highly visible landmark in the city, and just below it artists still set up their easels each day amidst the tables and colorful umbrellas of Place du Tertre.
The Loire Valley
Loire Valley is known as the Garden of France and the Cradle of the French Language. It is also noteworthy for the quality of its architectural heritage, , but in particular for its world-famous castle
s, such as the Châteaux d'Amboise, Château de Chambord, Château de Villandry and Chenonceau.
On December 2, 2000, UNESCO added the central part of the Loire River valley, between Maine and Sully-sur-Loire, to its list of World Heritage Sites.
The châteaux, numbering more than three hundred, represent a nation of builders starting with the necessary castle fortifications in the 10th century to the splendor of those built half a millennium later. When the French kings began constructing their huge châteaux here, the nobility, not wanting or even daring to be far from the seat of power, followed suit. Their presence in the lush, fertile valley with its moderate climate, began attracting the very best landscape designers.
Those who gained the king's favour and the wealthy bourgeoisie, continued to renovate existing châteaux or build lavish new ones as their summer residence in the Loire.
The French Revolution saw a number of the great French châteaux destroyed and many ransacked, their treasures stolen. During World War I and World War II, some chateaux were commandeered as military headquarters.
Today, these privately owned châteaux serve as homes, a few opening their doors to tourist visits, while others are operated as hotels or bed and breakfasts. Many have been taken over by a local government authority or the giant structures like those at Chambord are owned and operated by the national government and are major tourist sites, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay is a museum on the left bank of the Seine, housed in the former railway station, the Gare d'Orsay. It holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography, and is probably best known for its extensive collection of impressionist masterpieces by such painters such as Monet, Degas, Renoir, and Cezanne.
Click here to visit the official web site for the Musée d'Orsay...
Avignon
Avignon, in southeastern France is well known for its Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes), where several popes and antipopes lived from the early 14th to early 15th centuries.
In 1309 the city was chosen by Pope Clement V as his residence and from 1309 until 1377, it was the seat of the Papacy instead of Rome. Avignon belonged to the Papacy until 1791, when, during the disorder of the French Revolution, it was reincorporated with France.
Palais des Papes
The Palais des Papes in Avignon is one of the largest and most important medieval Gothic buildings in Europe.
Avignon became the residence of the Popes in 1309, when the Gascon Bertrand de Goth, as Pope Clement V, unwilling to face the violent chaos of Rome after his election (1305), moved the Papal Curia to Avignon, a period known as the Avignon Papacy.
Although the Palais remained under papal control for over 350 years, it gradually deteriorated despite a restoration in 1516. When the French Revolution broke out in 1789 it was already in a bad state when it was seized and sacked by revolutionary forces. In 1791 it became the scene of a massacre of counter-revolutionaries, whose bodies were thrown into the Tour des Latrines in the Palais Vieux.
The Palais was subsequently taken over by the Napoleonic French state for use as a military barracks and prison. Although it was further damaged by the military occupation, – the frescos were covered over and largely destroyed – ironically this ensured the shell of the building's physical survival. It was only vacated in 1906, when it became a national museum. It has been under
virtually constant restoration ever since.
The majority of the Palais is now open to the public; it also houses a large convention centre and the archives of the département of Vaucluse.
Information on the various sites in France, courtesy of Wikipedia.