Paris vs. Rouen - 5/29/25

Bonjour! Simone and Sydney here to tell you 2 parts of the same day: one in Rouen and one in Paris :)

Bonjour! This is Simone and I’m so happy to tell you about what our group did in Rouen!! We got up bright and early to catch the train to Rouen, so the first thing we did when we got there was find some coffee from a local coffee shop (which was so good that we went back there for lunch!) 

After getting coffee, we walked around and explored the city and were so surprised to discover that today was the Fête de Jeanne D’Arc (the Festival of Joan of Arc), which is a medieval/renaissance festival with a huge market, shops, and performances/demonstrations! We walked through the festival and shopped around while trying to find the famous Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Rouen. We actually thought that the first beautiful church-looking building we saw was the cathedral until we looked it up and saw that we were totally wrong. When we saw the actual cathedral, we were blown away! It was so beautiful. 

After the cathedral, we headed back to the cafe from this morning and got some lunch. While at lunch, we found out that there was a cat cafe nearby, so we decided we had to stop by after we finished our lunch. 

Then we headed to the Musée National de l’Education (National Museum of Education) and saw lots of interesting exhibits, including a model of what French classrooms used to look like. One addition I found really interesting was a poster from 1875 with first aid information on it. 

After the museum, we walked around the city a bit more, making sure everyone got to see the three (!!!) beautiful churches, and scoping out places to grab a quick dinner before we had to go back to the train station. We saw a phoenix demonstration/performance in front of the cathedral, got food at this amazing pizza place, and then caught the train back to Paris to get gelato and meet up with the rest of the group!!

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Bonjour! This is Sydney and I was a part of the Paris group today :)

Erin, Georgi, and I decided to give our bodies a break from the train and enjoy an extra day in Paris. We started our day by visiting the Pablo Picasso Museum. I remember studying a lot about him in my art classes growing up, so being able to look at all his work in person was on my Paris bucket list. We were amazed to learn that thousands of his paintings, drawings, sculptures, and poems were moved into this museum and we took our time looking through them all. In one of the rooms, we also saw a group of little kids drawing which was a cool little moment. 

We ended our time at the museum at the cafe and sat on the balcony soaking up the beautiful day. We wandered the streets around the museum and found a cute local jewelry window front, where we picked out some pieces for ourselves and loved ones. 

Another place on our Paris bucket list was the dome in the Galleries Lafayette, which is a huge luxury brand mall. We walked around, shopped a bit, and then headed back to the hotel for a little break. 

We decided to go and meet Juliet at the Pantheon to explore and were in awe of its beauty and size. We ventured down into the crypt to see the tombs of Victor Hugo, Marie Curie, and Voltaire. 

Our group was on our own for dinner, so we met up with Erin’s hometown friend who is also studying abroad in Paris, at an Italian restaurant. Our waiter was switching from English, to French, to Italian the entire time we were there and it was extremely impressive. 

Our final event of the night was reconvening with the Rouen group for a little gelato and a walk along the Seine. It was a successful day in France and we are sad these days are coming to a close!

Bonne journée!