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.
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
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 )
