Category: Hardelot 2016

On our last night in France the children were able to write comments in

The Hardelot Centre’s visitors book:

“I loved the football and the Ping-Pong.”

“It was a great week, I really enjoyed it.”

“I love this place!!!!!!!!!!”

“I had a great time as the staff are kind, the facilities are great and the things we’ve done were fun.”

“I have loved Hardelot.  It was epic and I wish I could stay!”

“It was absolutely awesome.  I performed my best concert ever.”

“It was the best place ever!  I couldn’t think of anything better.”

“Thank you for a lovely time here.  I enjoyed it all, thank you!  I love this place.”

“I think this was so fun.  The meals were great and everything was a amazing.”

“Loved this trip, it was awesome!”

“I loved it here because you can practise your sport still, like table-tennis, pool and many more.”

“I love it here!!!”

“It is amazing and I would really like to come again!!  Thank you.”

“The food was great!”

“I liked the food.” 

Throughout the four days our pupils were positive, friendly and helpful. 

Both out-and-about and at the centre they were always well-behaved and polite to everyone that we encountered. 

They tried hard to use some of the French words that they had learnt, as well as sampling French cuisine.

The staff that accompanied the trip were proud of our children, we felt that they represented both their school and their country well. 

This morning we enjoyed our final breakfast and said “Au revoir” to the lovely staff at the Hardelot Centre.

However, before we headed for home, we still had some exciting things to see.

The first of these was Étaples.  We spent time visiting the local market, it was much larger than the one we have in Ashford.  It was especially amazing to see the much wider variety of fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as all the different meat on offer (both raw and cooked).  We were also able to buy a few more souvenirs, some of us even had a go at haggling and managed to save a few Euros!

Étaples is a fishing town so as we walked along the side of the river we were able to see a number of fish stalls, again with an incredible range of fish, shellfish and other sea creatures.

Our next stop in Étaples was Les Maréis fishing museum – we were completely immersed in a fascinating maritime universe: there was a huge aquarium, including friendly rays, and we heard lashings of information about fishermen, their environment, their lifestyle and a variety of techniques for fishing. We even learnt how to tie a special fisherman’s knot.

We also saw a memorial for fishermen who had died at sea, then we ended out time in Étaples with a picnic in a park close to the museum.

After lunch we headed to Boulogne for a super sweet treat! We visited ‘Becasuc’ sweet factory and saw first-hand how their candy is handmade from beginning to end. All of their sweets are made and packaged at the factory: they can produce 2400 candies per minute!

We had a demonstration of the manufacture of both their jellied and hard-boiled sweets, and some of us were even able to have a go.  We learnt about their ingredients, recipes and processes,  and then (best of all) we were able to  enjoy some tasters before visiting their shop.

Finally, we continued our journey: Calais – Dover – Home xx

Today we visited ‘La Ferme Aux Escargots’ – a real snail farm, we had a short talk about the farm, followed by a guided tour and then a tasting session!

See if you can work out what we thought from our pictures!

 

And now for the tasting . . . .

 

Picnic by the River at Beussent.

 

This afternoon was much more tasty than this morning.

We visited ‘Chocolaterie de Beussent’ – a chocolate factory, we had explanations and demonstrations of the various production techniques and learnt a little about the history of cocoa.

Finally, some tasting we could all sink our teeth into!

Just when we thought our taste buds could relax – we had some traditional starters for our evening meal:

Snails, Frogs legs and cheese tart.

Fortunately this was followed by “boeuf bourguignon et mousse au chocolat”.

Some of us got letters from home today, which we received after dinner.  We then had an impromptu performance and played party games, before packing our bags ready to leave in the morning.  None of us can believe that it’s nearly time to go home already – where have the last three days gone?

 

Unbelievably we needed to be woken up at 7:30am this morning.  Our breakfast was a very traditional croissant, baguette & hot chocolate – we learnt how to say each of these items in French, and re-capped on the language that we learnt yesterday.

After our rooms had been inspected, we relaxed a little before preparing to depart for Hardelot Plage.

Sun tan lotion was liberally applied by all

We had to walk the 4 miles to the seafront, which took us about an hour to complete.  By the time we arrived we were more than ready for our packed lunch, which we enjoyed sitting on the promenade (as it was high tide).

In France the shops close for a long lunch – in Hardelot this meant that many of the shops were closed from 12:30 until 3pm.  This meant that we could have a leisurely lunch and recover from our walk before heading into the “centre ville”  to practise our French and spend some euros.  Hardelot is a very small town and we enjoyed looking at all the shops and buying some souvenirs.  We ended our visit by purchasing either a slushie drink or an ice-cream, unfortunately (as all the grown-ups were busy eating “le glace”) there are no pictures of the mammoth ice-creams we had!

Have refuelled we realised that we had to walk another 4 miles back . . . and that this time it was uphill!

Whether it was the sugar rush, or just a deep desire to get back and sit down, we actually made better time on the journey back.  According to Mrs Taylor’s fitbit we had walked an amazing 18,750 steps!!

Again we were more than ready for our evening meal, 3 delicious courses and more new language.

 We were then treated to some light-entertainment from some of the boys before splitting into two groups.

One group who wanted to watch the Euros semi-final and one who didn’t!

We are rooting for Wales but, as Portugal are currently 2-0 up with less than 20 minutes to go, we’re not hopeful!

Soon it’s off to bed as we have a busy day tomorrow.

We have arrived!

Having departed Godinton at 7:30a.m. we made had a smooth journey to Calais.  We “sailed” through customs and security checks, and arrived in plenty of time to stake our claim in the food court on P&O’s Spirit

ViviLnk

of Britain.  We all tucked in to a hearty breakfast – just the thing you need before a sea crossing!

Fortunately we all managed to keep our breakfasts down, and we arrived in Calais just before 12pm local time.

Unfortunately our coach was a little delayed so we ate lunch in Calais, before heading straight to the Hardelot centre.  (All those hoping for some tasty gifts, don’t worry – we’ll be going to the Sweet Factory on Friday instead!)

We arrived at the Hardelot centre at around 4pm and promptly made ourselves at home, making our beds and unpacking, before enjoying a delicious 3-course French meal.

After dinner we continued to explore the centre and all the various activities that they have on offer:

Beach football & volleyball, challenge trail, outdoor performance area, games room (including pool table, table tennis, football table, large games & many others things) ….

The local time is now 23:00 and we are all fast asleep and looking forward to our day in Hardelot tomorrow.