Paris 2001

Paris 2001 was an International Camp for Berkshire Scouts organised by the County. Two coaches took 100 Scouts & Leaders over to France for five days. We were split into 15 patrols, each with six or sevenn Scouts and a leader, and a service team. We spent one day in camp, three days in central Paris and one day in EuroDisney. The activities for the three days in central Paris were decided and planned by pairs of patrols. Apart from communual meals, on the first and last days of the camp, all cooking was done in patrols on petrol stoves. The two patrols that Emily & I were supervising worked together for the entire trip and were made up from a mixture of two Reading Troops.

We then had a long drive, broken by a stop at some French Services, before arriving at the campsite in Torcy, just outside Paris, at around 8.30am. We then had to carry all our kit over to our plot on the site by hand (about 400m away) before we could have breakfast which had been prepared by the advance party. The rest of the first day was spent setting up camp and organising the next day's activities although many leaders also made time to catch up on some sleep having been up around 30 or so hours. We helped the patrols cook the evening meal of tuna & pasta in tomato sauce, although we had a seperate billy for those who don't like tuna...

The coach took us all into Paris which took nearly an hour, being rush hour, and dropped us at the Porte de Vincennes Metro Station. If you like you can follow our travels by opening up a Metro Map in a separate window. We caught the Metro up to Palais Royal Musee du Louvre where we were hoping to go in The Louvre to see the Mona Lisa. Unfortunately it turned out that the museum staff were on strike and that we were not going to be able to get in. Instead we went outside and looked at the huge glass pyramids and the gardens. We also saw the big wheel in Place de la Concorde.

The boys all wanted to go shopping so we wandered over to Forum Des Halles (link courtesy of Anthony Atkielski's website). Emily and I let them run loose for an hour and a half, during which time some of us took the opportunity of paying 2FF to use a 'proper' loo (rather than the 'hole in the ground' type at the campsite), before we all met up again for lunch out in the sun (see picture). I took the picture to show the old and new together: the church in the background is Saint-Eustache which is the largest in Paris after Notre-Dame.

After lunch we nipped round the corner to have a look at the 'inside-out' George Pompidou Center. There was a huge queue to go in so we decided only to view its magnificence from the outside. I did try to arrange for us to sneak up in the lift to the restaurant to see the view from the top but the 'bouncer' would only agree to let us up two at a time which would have taken hours! We bumped in Ed & Mads in the square who were helping to 'man' the Emergency HQ in a nearby cafe. After a quick chat with them we headed off to the Town Hall.

It's a grand ornate old building with a large square in front of it. I think we all took pictures of it although I didn't really get a good shot of it - the photo here is just a corner of it. and watched the fountains before carrying on our way to Notre Dame Cathedral. There were three queues: one to go up the tower, one to go in to the service, and one to just look round the Cathedral. We joined the shortest queue and went inside to look round. It is very dimly lit and absolutely huge inside with some amazing paintings and stained-glass windows. As it was Good Friday there was a Service underway with hundreds of people queueing to receive Communion. It was pleasing to see the Cathedral being used for its intended purpose. Emily & I paid to go into the treasurey which homes some beautiful, ornate, and priceless old relics.

Once we had finished looking round the Cathedral we caught the Metro back to Porte de Vincennes to put the Scouts back on the coach. Just next to where we were meeting the coach, a TV company was filming for the French equivalent of "Grange Hill". We watched for a few minutes while they were filming, it was very odd to think that all the actors were probably really famous to French kids but none of us had the slightest idea who they were.

Emily & I had the 'night off' so after getting the Scouts back on the coach we set off to explore Paris on our own. We went on the Big Wheel, and looked at the 3300 year old obelisk at Place de la Concorde. The obelisk is on the site of the guillotine used in the Revolution which beheaded, amongst many others, Marie Antoinette. We also went to the site of Princess Diana's crash, had a curry and bought a hot water bottle. At the end of the evening we caught the RER (Réseau Express Régional - fast Metro) back to Torcy for midnight where we met Lindsey (who had also had the night off) and waited about for a few minutes in the cold for our lift back to the campsite.

Although we were, by now, very tired we were up again at 7am to get the patrols up, washed, cooking French Toast ("eggy bread" to us!), and making their packed lunches. We again got the coach at 9am into Paris and jumped on the Metro at Porte de Vincennes. We stayed on the Metro all the way up to Charles de Gaule Etoile where we changed on to line 6 (light green) and travelled five stops to Bir Hakeim. Then we joined the queue for the Eiffel Tower and spent 2 hours fending off tacky-gift touts. Some were quite friendly and had some humourous exchanges with our group despite the fact that no-one bought anything. As we neared the front of the queue I could see that there were signs up in the ticket office saying that the top was closed due to overcrowding. This was not particularly good news as we could have walked up to the second stage with very little queueing and have been up the top earlier... Anyway, when we finally got to the front, I asked the lady in the ticket office if I could have 15 tickets to the top and she said "of course!", a bit surprised that I was unsure of my success in obtaining the tickets. So, we waited a few more minutes for a lift and then rode straight up to the second level. A few people nipped to the toilet before we queued a few more minutes to get the lift up to the top. We couldn't all fit in one lift so we had to split in two and rejoin at the top.

It is possible to feel the sway of the tower at the second level but is strongest at the top - it felt a bit like walking on the deck of a ship. We all took loads of pictures (see left) before hopping in the lift back down to the second level. We had a bit more of a look round then queued for the lift back down. I got out at the 1st level with a couple of Scouts to post some cards whilst the others carried on down to start their lunch. Looking over the edge we watched the rest of our party emerging from the bottom (see photo). We also had a quick look at the displays, including photos and videos showing all the occasions that fireworks have set off from the tower, and a huge hologram of the tower on its side which you could look right down the middle of. One lift ride and a few mintues later we rejoined the rest of our group to eat our lunch under the tower.

Going up the Eiffel Tower had taken up most of the day so, after lunch, we started to head back to the coach. We had been given money and instructions to get the Scouts to buy their own desserts for the evening meal so we made a stop in a Monoprix. We let the Scouts go off to choose their own puddings, with the option to buy individually or in groups, whilst Emily & I chose our own. Once all the purchases had been completed we headed back to the coach and met up with the rest of the patrols. By now it was very easy to fall asleep during the journey and wake up on arrival back at the camp site...

Back at camp we were provided with Spaghetti Bolognese for the evening meal. Emily & I got our patrols to work together and I kept a close rein on proceedings emphasising to the PLs the importance of teamwork and organisation. This enabled us to have cooked, eaten and washed up before most of the other patrols had finished cooking. Then we got to enjoy the goodies that we had bought earlier which ranged from plain orange juice through a variety of cream cakes and yoghurts to fresh fruit.

After dinner it was arranged for the coaches to take us all back into Paris for a tour round the sights by night. Everything looked very different than from during the day and the Eiffel Tower was lit up like a sparkler. We were treated to a commentary by Bob Meldrum which was on the whole reasonably interesting and educational. Including the travelling time, the tour round Paris took between 2 and 3 hours so when we arrived back at the site we were all quite tired and still had a couple of days to go!

Easter Day!! The weather today was not so good and we felt relieved that we had decided to tackle the Eiffel Tower the day before. After breakfast we were once again ferried into Paris and dropped off at the by now very familiar Porte de Vincennes where we again caught the Metro to Charles de Gaule Etoile. We had travelled all the way there with another 2 patrols who stayed on to the end of the line to visit La Grande Arch at La Defense. So, while they carried on travelling, we made our way over to the Arc de Triomphe which we had been told was free. However, when we arrived we discovered that, because of the size of our party, we would have to pay a flat group rate of 20FF! Luckily we had a bit of money in the kitty and so we paid and all had our bags checked (a cursory glance) before climbing the numerous stairs to the top (see right). Although it was drizzling a bit by now, the vantage point still afforded some fine views across Paris which, different from yesterday, now included the Eiffel Tower (see above). After looking at all the art & exhibits in the top room and patronising the gift shop we made our way back down to the ground to look at the Eternal flame guarded by Armed Policemen.

Making use of the subway we made our way onto the top of the Champs Elysee and had a short stroll down to George V where we jumped on the Metro, changing at Franklin D Roosevelt, to Alma Marceau. There visited the impromptu Diana 'memorial' which, although actually a Peace Memorial, has become a shrine to Diana with graffiti, pictures and flowers surrounding it since she died there in a car accident in August 1997. The sculpture is a scale copy of the flame in the torch held by the Statue of Liberty and was given by the United States during the Centenary of the statue.

We walked over to the Bateaux Mouches where we arrived just in time to jump on the next boat. Due to the size of our party we got a really good deal at the ticket office and I think Emily & I travelled free! The boat travels East down the Seine into central Paris for a few miles allowing good views of the major sights. There is a visual and audio commentary in various languages allowing you to understand what you're seeing. After turning round, the boat travels back past the start for a mile or so before returning to its mooring. The river was quite choppy that day, as you can see from the photo, but not choppy enough to put us off our lunches which we ate during the journey.

During the journey you are taken past a minature version of the Statue of Liberty which stands on Swan Island next to Grenelle bridge. It weighs 14 tons and is 20.5 metres high (compared to the 225 tons & 93 metres of the original) and was presented to the city of Paris by the Parisian American community in return for the Full-size version that the French gave them. The Full-size Statue of Liberty, which stands on Liberty island in the USA, was designed by the French sculptor Frèdèric Bartholdi and given to the United States by France to commemorate the Centennial of US Independence. Constuction began in 1875, with Gustave Eiffel filling the shoes of Structural Engineer, and took until 1884 to complete. It was presented to the American people on 4th July 1884 then dismantled and shipped to the US early in 1885 where it was finally erected in its present position in 1886. It was accepted on behalf of the US by President Grover Cleveland but was not designated as a National Monument until 15th October 1924.

After the boat journey we walked back over to Place de la Concorde and all went on the Big Wheel. This view of Paris over the roof-tops was a complete contrast to the river view that we had enjoyed on the boat. All safely off the big whhel, we caught the Metro back to Porte de Vincennes to put the Scouts back on the coach. We nipped off to get some sweets before joining the coach for the journey back to the campsite.

This was our last full day in France and we had a lot of clearing up to do which meant being up at 7pm sharp. We were given a communial breakfast to prevent excess washing up. Once breakfast had been consumed we had to take down all the tents, pack our kit up and carry everything back over to the coaches waiting in the carpark. This of course took quite a long time but was rather less traumatic than one might imagine. Then we had the usual litter sweep and final inspection of the site to make sure we hadn't left anything behind including rubbish! That done we all piled onto the coaches and set off for Eurodisney.

The drive was not particularly long even though we took an 'experimental' route via the hotels and conference centres... There was a bit of a misunderstanding over tickets which meant that we had to hang around at the entrance for nearly an hour but eventually our tickets materialised and we bundled everyone into the park. As it was now around midday we decided to immediately take our patrols to get some lunch. We took advantage of the lunchtime parade keeping many people occupied on the main street and took refuge in one of the fast food outlets. This particular established offered a wide variety of meals: hot dog meal or chicken nuggets meal. You would have thought that this would have made it quite easy to order 15 meals. You would have thought. Wrong. You would have been forgetting that there was also a choice of 5 drinks with your meal. And that, amazingly, the staff are not all bi- or multi-lingual. Even though I can speak a reasonable amount of French this simple task turned into something of an ordeal. Combined with a French woman 'accidentally' knocking over a tray of 9, yes 9, drinks that Emily was carrying made for an 'interesting' eating experience. Oh, and the food was terrible. And cold. Still at least after lunch we could let our patrols wander off (in groups of a specified combined minimum age) whilst we relaxed a bit.

I have to say that I was not all that impressed with the place and would prefer to go to Alton Towers or Blackpool Pleasure Beach. This may be because I just do not like Disney, or that the place is aimed at much younger children than I am used to looking after, or because there just aren't that many good rides. Having said that, Space Mountain - "From the Earth to the Moon" is a very good roller-coaster and is the best ride in the whole place. It is in the dark (similar to the "Black Hole" at Alton Towers) but much longer and faster. It also has an illuminated moon, meterorites, etc. which you hurtle past at frightening speed. Our lot loved it even more than Emily & I did and some of them went on it 12 times. We managed 7.

We saw various numbers of our group around the park and after a couple of hours some of our Scouts told us about the 'FastPass' queuing system which is similar to the Virtual Queuing System at Alton Towers - you run you park ticket through a machine that prints out a ticket with a return time range (an hour) specified when you should return and enter through a seperate entrance cutting out 80% of the queue. Once we were aware of the system we made good use of it and told everyone else that we bumped into. There are only 2 other roller- coaster rides - Indiana Jones, which goes backwards, and Big Thunder Mountain which are OK but not a patch on Space Mountain.

By the time we all met up again for dinner at 6pm we had all done nearly everything. Most of our boys had purchased oversize hats and were all wearing them, the photo shows them in front of the castle in the Central Plaza. For dinner we decided against "Buzz Lightyear's Pizza Planet Restaurant" and instead headed for the "Blue Lagoon Restaurant" in Adventureland. Here we found a wider selection of food than at lunch (but not much) and friendly, helpful staff. We ordered our meals and found some tables with room for all of us to sit together for our 'last supper' together. We had a mixture of burgers, hot dogs and chicken, all with chips of course which, pretty much used up the rest of the kitty that we had. The picture shows us nearing the end of our meals which weren't actually too bad.

I can't remember exactly what time we (all 100 of us) had arranged to meet up in the Central Plaza but it was between 9pm and 10pm. That gave us time to go round doing the last few things that we had missed out and repeating the things we had enjoyed most. So, after dinner, we let everyone run off again although we tagged along with a few of our boys to go on Space Mountain a couple more times. They also took us to the "Haunted House" which I must say is absolutely fantastic. The designers obviously put a lot of thought into it and have produced a real marvel. All the staff are in costume (as in all the other parts of the park) but also play 'in character'. Everything is really well thought out including the huge angled-glass projection which is the Main Hall. Ghosts appear to eat and drink at the table and fly out of the chimney, and run though walls. One of the oldest theatrical tricks in the book, but used to great effect.

When we had gathered back in the Central Plaza at the alloted time, all 100 of us formed a huge circle and Bob Meldrum presentated a Chief Scout's Challenge Badge to one of the girls. This done we found a load of seats outside one of the cafes and our boys also took the opportunity to present us with 'thank you' presents which they had very recently purchased. We then hung around until 11pm when we watched the tedious and drawn-out affair which is the Electric Light Parade. We had been hoping for fireworks but they don't happen every day. Shame. The ELP was the most pointless and tacky thing I'd seen all day. Not many of our boys enjoyed it much either. I think it was aimed at the 3-6 age range who, in my opinion, should have been in bed by 11pm anyway... When it was finally over we herded everyone off towards the park exit and back to the coaches (via the toilets) for a night drive back to Calais.

Our ferry left Calais at 4.30am which was right in the middle of when most of us were trying to sleep. Still, always time for duty-free shopping - any excuse to buy spirits and large Toblerones... Whilst we were sat in the bar, our Scouts came to tell us that the Stereophonics were sat on the other side of the bar. Well I had to have a look to check and there they were - signing autographs for the rest of our Scouts! I spoke to the drummer (Stuart Cable) and apologised for all our lot disturbing the band. He was a really nice bloke and didn't care at all. He said that they were on their way back to the UK after doing some radio promotion in Europe and was quite happy to chat.

Once back in England we piled back on the coaches and drove off the ferry not stopping until we reached Clacket Lane services on the M25. Everyone made use of the toilets and Bob divided-up the remaining drinks, crisps, cakes and fruit. Some of the boys drank rather too much orange juice before we rejoined the M25 just in time for the rush hour. Struggling through the traffic, and battling with boys sporting sull bladders, we arrived back in Reading at about 8.30am. Completely exhausted, we said our goodbyes, grabbed all our kit and made our way home to a hot shower and some well-earned sleep whilst the coach continued on to take the rest of the Scouts home.