Today is Pentecost Monday --- a school holiday in France --- so, all the Americans and their partners met up with Madame Robillard, Madame Coadou (the history teacher who is Madame Robillard's direct partner on the Oklahoma Soldiers' project) and Madame Hamard (one of the English teachers at Lycee Jean Racine). We went on a road trip! Our first stop, after the public restrooms, was St. Valery-sur-Somme where we walked along the Baie de la Somme and ate a picnic on the boardwalk. Madame's legs were really sore from all the recent walking, so she waited by the sea while the students and teachers walked up to the old city and visited what is essentially a medieval town. (We look forward to reading the girls' descriptions of this experience here at this blog.)
Then, we left St. Valery-sur-Somme and on our way out of town we came across an amazingly beautiful field of poppies, so we stopped for a photo shoot --- the pictures should fit well with our project since poppies are associated with remembering those killed in World War I. We drove a bit to get to the coast and we visited the beaches at Cayeux.
The beaches are made of smooth stones rather than sand. Several of us gathered stones to keep as a souvenir. Madame's most morable souvenir has to be the sunburn she got! All the girls except Jessie decided to dip their feet in the English Channel (freezing!).
After the beach, we drove for about half an hour to the castle at Rambure. This is a beautiful castle that began in the Middle Ages during the 100 Years' War and was added to and improved successively over the years. We got to have a guided tour and we took many wonderful pictures. We also went on a tour of the grounds and found an American Sequoyah there! The girls were impressed with the "moat" and drawbridge and perhaps we all felt as though we had traveled through time a bit.
It took another hour to get back to Montdidier from the castle and each girl went home with her host family.
