Day 4
A more relaxing start to the day with breakfast at 8am. Still too early for some!
We set off at 10am in the Geneva sunshine and strolled through the Parc Mon-Repos to the History of Science museum. After CERN it felt like going from the sublime to the ridiculous - from the latest in Science and engineering to the very beginning. We saw the first battery made by Italian Physicist Volta, the actual apparatus used by Coulomb to establish the force between charged objects and many other suberb examples of early telescopes, measuring instruments and electrostatics apparatus.
We played with the Magdeburg Hemispheres in the gardens and have some excellent photographs of Gregor and Maxence demonstrating the effects of air pressure.
We took a boat ride across Lake Geneva to the Left Bank and strolled along the promenade and wandered through the old town to find sandwiches for lunch before settling down for a picnic in the Jardin Anglais.
With a couple of hours free time, most settled in the parc playing cards, Mr Swan set off for a game of chess at the Promenade de Bastion and Mrs Hayes went shopping for a monkey!
Three wins at chess and one monkey later we were all back at the parc and the new game was touch rugby with a bouncy ball found in the parc. So nice to see a group of young people having fun and enjoying each others company.
We met up with Elsa who had spent some time at Hyndland and lives in Geneva and after some catching up and reminiscing, we headed back to the Hostel to collect our luggage for the journey home.
It was a 4 minute train ride from the centre of Geneva to the Airport, a snack for those who had money left to spend, security check, passport control, a quick panic that Maxence had dropped his ID card and we werre on the flight home.
Everyone had a superb trip. There are lots of photos to see, stories to hear, video diaries to watch and bags of dirty washing to unpack.
The pupil were a fantastic group - polite, considerate, appreciative and a real credit to the school, themselves and their parents. I wish them every success for the future and hope this trip has inspired them to work in the field of Science & Engineering and realise their full potential.
Mrs Hayes, Group Leader
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