Arcadia England

This past weekend, Arcadia students in the Imagining London and Paris class travelled to Paris for a two-night stay in the former Bohemian neighbourhood of Montmartre. The trip was led by Dr Laurence Scott, who has kindly shared the experience with us:

During class sessions they applied the theories about French modernity learnt in the classroom to the living, contemporary city. They took trips to the Picasso museum, the Pompidou Centre, and the Musée d'Orsay, to see artworks linked to the major cultural movements of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Walking tours were also a key feature of the trip, themed around the French Revolution and Paris's architectural renovation in the 1850s. Students walked about 40 miles over the three days and have the blisters to prove it! The trip ended with a seminar in the beautiful Luxembourg Gardens.

Here's one student's highlight from the trip:

My favorite part of the Paris trip was sitting on top of Montmartre because we were able to see the entire city which we had spent so much time studying and reading about. It is impossible to describe the feeling you get when you have the chance to look over a city so large and yet so small. To us, Paris was a destination. A place we had to go to see, but to so many, Paris is home... Paris is a place where everyone can go and find what they need to find, and it was nice to experience this and not only read about it."

 Thanks for your input Erin, we're glad you enjoyed the trip!