Our last full day in France! It’s hard to believe our time away has nearly come to an end but we have enjoyed another jam-packed day of exploring and activities!
Our first stop of the day was to Caramels d’Isigny – a caramel factory in Normandy. We were welcomed by Claire when we arrived who gave us a tour and told us all about the history and process of making caramels. We saw workers in the factory mixing the caramel, preparing it and hand wrapping the finished caramel ready to be sold in the shop. During the tour we were given samples of some of the caramels to taste and they were délicieuse! We tasted two caramel fondants (non sticky), a caramel popcorn and one sticky caramel, which was apple flavoured (and our favourite!)
After the tour we had our last shop visit of the trip and were so pleased we had saved some euros for the caramel shop, there were so many options to choose from and everything smelt amazing!
Our next stop was la Point du Hoc. This was such an eye opening experience for us and incredible to see. La Point du Hoc was the location of a series of German bunkers and machine gun posts during WW2. On D-Day, the United States Army Provisional Ranger Group attacked the fortified German defences and captured Pointe du Hoc after scaling the cliffs. We were impressed with how well the area has been preserved and our visit there really highlighted the sacrifices that were made to win the War. It was mind-blowing to be able to see the craters left from bombs, walk through the concrete castmates and see the gun pits.
Our last activity of the day was back at the château for an afternoon of team building activities and exercises. We spilt off in to two groups, working together through wind and rain to complete the tasks. The challenges required problem solving, resilience and all of our determination! It was hard work, especially with the added pressure of wet weather but we persevered and tackled the Blind Trail, Save the Canister, Tower of Tires, Shipwreck Problem, and Spider’s Web. We were exhausted by the end of it and extremely proud of how well we’d done. We had earned the extra free time before dinner which we spent playing games, watching a film and enjoying each others company.
With the château staff we played The Run Around Quiz Game after dinner before heading upstairs to pack our bags for the long journey back home Friday. We were almost too full of energy to sleep but with our teachers help we managed to get ourselves ready for bed in record time!