We’re going to tell you about our school trip to Nantes from 8th to 11th February 2022. We slept and ate at a hotel near the Atlantic Ocean.

We met in front of the school at 3 a.m with our luggage. We felt very tired because it was very early, but we were very excited to go. Our driver was called Guillaume.

At first, we visited the castle of Chambord. It’s very big and beautiful. It was built by François 1st in the sixteenth century. It is very famous because there is a double helix staircase. We had a packed lunch in the park and then we got back on the bus and drove to the hotel. It took us all day to get there. We were 4 pupils in each duplex. It was funny because we could talk through the windows on the roof, but we had to give our mobiles to the teachers for the night.

The next morning the teachers woke us up at 6 a.m. We went to the Château des Ducs de Bretagne to see an exhibition about slavery. We had a guided tour. First, we saw a statue and an animated map showing the triangular trade from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, different maps and documents and some paintings. We also saw a copy of the Black Code and the goods (textile, weapons, dishes) that left Europe to be traded against slaves in Africa. There were instruments of torture too. Then, we walked through the old town with the guide to the Memorial for the Abolition of slavery. We had a packed lunch near the river Loire. In the afternoon we visited the museum of sardines. We could taste some and buy and buy some. Finally, we went to the beach, we took some pictures, it was cold and cloudy. Two teachers raced along the sea, which was fun! The next day, we were very tired because we all watched tv too late.

The next day, half of the group had a workshop about slavery and could work on real documents from the eighteenth century. It was very difficult to read old French.  The second group visited the town center and then we switched. The first group visited the « Machines de l’Ile » workshop which is an artistic project to create a huge tree as a touristic attraction with a lot of mechanical animals. There was an enormous elephant that threw water with his trunk . Some of us were wet! At the same time, the second group had to follow an itinerary to discover modern works of art on the Isle of Nantes and answer a questionnaire. Then we switched.

At the end of the day, we had dinner in a cafeteria before spending the night on the coach to go back to Chazay.