Mardi : le château, le shopping et l'elephant de Nantes

Plus de soleil aujourd'hui! Amazingly sunny day again and we managed to get to Nantes in very good time. Started off with a lovely mooch around the castle. Then some free time to shop and enjoy the sun. After a lovely relaxing packed lunch on the banks of the river Loire we moved on to les machines de l'ile in the afternoon. This had to be seen to be believed - it's an amazing set of mechanical animals that pupils can ride on and interact with. The highlight though was the elephant though. A giant 50foot high mechanical beast walking along the ground with us on top. It even sprayed out real water from it's trunk! Freya Weston cooled off nicely this way in the heat! Canicule is the word for heatwave in French by the way. A slightly extended journey back in the evening resulted in us having a shorter evening but the duck (le canard) that we had for an evening meal was delicious. All pupils will be in school tomorrow with their partners and involved in different leisure activities with their host families tomorrow afternoon. Ps - a big thanks to Izzy, Connor, Alessia, Vanessa, Tamsyn, Josh, Sophie, Freya, Nathalie and anyone else who was involved in buying that surprise for the teachers. It was very sweet. Very touching. Thank you. A demain! Monsieur L.