mercredi 14 novembre 2012

Our Trip to Portugal October 30th to November 4th 2012

WELCOME TO PORTUGAL !

Wednesday, October 31st

As soon as we arrived, we discovered that our arrival was an important event for everyone !
In fact, our Portuguese friends had prepared some posters about the previous trips, some dances and songs. Quite amazing as Yasmine and myself were the only girls from Comenius to join in !

Notre arrivée avec danses et chansons

 
 
 
 
 
To introduce Portuguese culture they showed us some videos about different cities … After all the speeches, we had a breakfast … At that's the moment we understood they loved eating !
 Après des vidéos sur notre projet et le Portugal , gros buffet d'accueil !
 
 
 
 
 


The moment to express ourselves had come so we created our own tiles as the Portugues are masters at Azuleros and it was a good experience.  Atelier de faience et visite de classes



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
After lunch, we went to visit theMuseum of Celtic culture and that's how we learned how rich Portuguese history was because of its romans origins !   Visite du Musée de culture celtique de Briteiros et visite guidée du site


To finish the day we went for a « little walk » with a bottle of water for each of us … why some water ? … because the little walk became a walk in the mountains … some of us thought it looked like the Amazonian forest, for others it was Vietnam ! Yet we were not too tired and fortunately we visited the Citania de Briteiros !

It was a busy, interesting and pleasant day !

Alixe AUBRY 1ère




Thursday, November, 1st

Today, as usual, we had breakfast with the family, nothing very different compared to France. We were glad to see that we could understand more Portuguese than yesterday, maybe because we got used to the accent and the « sh » which are everywhere in the Portuguese language.
Then, we met at school to go to Geres, a National Park . Unfortunately, the weather was too cloudy, and we couldn't climb at the very top to see these wondeful landscapes because we wouldn't be able to see anything because of the fog.

excursion dans le Parc National de Geres





After doing a short tour of the city, we went to another place where we were taught how to make traditional bread, made with mais flour. It was awesome, and so good to eat ! So good that everybody ate too much and couldn't eat the lunch which was just after !

The bread was accompanied with chorizo or with olive oil, sweet orange and sugar.
atelier de pain de mais


After having lunch, we went to two beautiful cities. The first one, Ponte de Lima is one of the oldest village in the whole country. I found the village very peaceful, with very nice people who tried to talk with us even if the language barrier was still there.
 
 
 visite de Ponte de Lima
 
 
 
 
Yasmine REKIK TS1
 

Friday , November 2nd
Friday was a rainy day. Hopefully, we found the sunlight we needed in the prevailing good mood of the entire group. Indeed, we started the day by a short lesson on our ancestors who lived in prehistoric times. The lecture took place amid an incredible diversity within the room. The teacher juggled with some Portuguese, English, French and even lost herself in speaking Italian, even though there weren’t any Italians. And at the end of her speech, we had to copycat the rupestrian art of the cavemen. Anyhow, the mix of all these nationalities created an amazing atmosphere and we spent a jolly good time.      
 
After having fun dirtying our hands for art, a football match was organized by the Portuguese sport teacher. All of the kids wanted to play against us. Thus, two teams were quickly sorted out. One, mixed with all the European countries, and the other with Portuguese pupils. It is hard to admit it for us, but the facts are undeniable. We got beaten by teams of 12 year-old toddlers, while we were an average of 17 years-olds on our side. Anyhow, it was great fun sharing this moment with everybody.
Match entre collégiens de tous pays
The shameful defeat over, we attended a sacred moment of our journey as members of the Comenius project. Each of the coordinators of Comenius participated in planting a chestnut tree, symbol of the project. We sure hope it will grow strong and sturdy.
 
 
 Plantion d'un marronnier  symbole de notre action Comenius
 
 
 
 
 
 
Visite de Braga , de la cathédral Dom Jesus
Once on the bus, we discovered some beautiful landscapes that I wouldn’t have imagined seeing here. The countryside is really hilly with slopes everywhere. Moreover, there isn’t really any countryside, in the way that you can find houses scattered everywhere. And when you expect it the least, you find the sea at the top of a hill. Actually, we often went on the top of hills, since it was usually the location of churches and basilica. We visited two of them this day, and I must say they blended perfectly a gorgeous Baroque architecture with an outstanding view of the valley.

Eventually, we ended the day visiting the city of Braga, a lovely town which apparently is even older than Portugal itself. It is fair to say that everybody was exhausted after this particularly grueling day. Yet, as I said earlier, we didn’t even notice the bad weather thanks to the amazing time we spent visiting, chatting and sharing this unique moment of our life with our European fellow-citizen. And as the year will flow, I can honestly say that we will remember this day as a bright and sunny day.
Mathieu BRUN TS1
                                                                                              The stadium of Braga

Saturday, November 3rd 2012
Visite de Guimaraes First of all, we went to Guimarães, a city close to Briteiros, which is the city where we lived. So Guimarães was elected “European Capital of Culture” this year.



Furthermore, Guimarães is the place where was born the first king of Portugal, so it's a city which is very important in the history of Portugal.

Then we visited some churches, and especially one which was build in 1500, and which have the best architecture. It's a baroque church, but a little exaggerated because there are many things, in gold, and the architecture is symmetric with much decoration.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
After we visited the international arts centre of José de Guimarães. He was inspired by African art, so he collected European Asian and African culture.

After that, we went to Porto and we visited the replica of a ship which went to India in 16th century.

I was amazed to be on a real ship, and stupefied to see how 150 persons could live on that boat.

Last but least, we visited the city of Porto and went shopping. We could see the rest of the city of Porto and it was very beautiful

Visite d'un ancien bateau du XVIth siècle


Mahé BULOT 1S1

At School ( Mahé , Yasmine , Mathieu et Alix )