St Thomas More High School

Barcelona Trip February 2017

On Friday 10th February 2017 a group of 30 excited year 9 and 10 boys along with Mrs Terry, Mr West and Mrs Lindsay travelled by minibus to embark on our Spanish adventure to Barcelona.  When we arrived in Barcelona it was quite late.  The educational visit was designed to expose students to a flavour of the Spanish language and culture as well as visiting some businesses whilst we there.

We stayed in the Urbanny Hostel which proved to be a great hit with the boys, they enjoyed socialising with some other groups, playing pool and taking part in some karaoke!

On Saturday the boys had group Spanish lessons at the Language School International House in Barcelona. We were put into groups based on our experiences of Spanish language, I think it is safe to say we ‘all’ learned some new Spanish phrases and was good for all of us to experience Spanish from Spanish tutors.

Later in the afternoon, we visited the traditional, family-run Torres winery included a guided tour of wine production and bottling process. The Torres family has been producing wine for more than three centuries. Students took a guided tour which starts with a film presentation at the visitors' centre. The film gave great detail as to how the winery cares for the environment, in fact part of its mission is to ensure winemaking at Torres respects the environment and uses biological alternatives to products that are aggressive towards the natural surroundings. After the introductory film the students were taken to the winery itself and shown taken by mini-train through the vineyards to learn about cultivation and harvesting.

That evening we had dinner at the hostel and took part in some karaoke! A lot of fun was had by all.

On Sunday we had a busy day, firstly making our way into the city by metro, where we walked around Las Ramblas. Las Ramblas is approximately 1.2 kilometres long with Port Vell (near the cruise port terminal) at the Southern most end and Plaça Catalunya at the northern most end. We witnessed a Catholic procession to Santa Eulalia church with huge figures ‘dancing’ and bands playing.

There the boys had some time to take in some Spanish culture and to buy some gifts for loved ones.

Later in the afternoon we made our way to the famous Camp Nou – which was a keen favourite by the boys - The tour of Camp Nou is the second most popular reason people visit the stadium (the first being, of course, to watch the team in all their glory). Spanning the entire stadium, the tour takes in the FC Barcelona Museum, with its wall-to-wall trophy cabinets, interactive displays, and historic reminders of yesteryear players, the press room, dressing rooms, and the field itself.

Other highlights include a walk through the player’s tunnel, a peek into the commentary boxes, and a browse of the Messi space – yes, that’s an entire space dedicated to the Argentinian superstar.

We then made our way to Poble Espanyol. The Poble Espanyol, or Spanish Village, is one of the city's most popular visitor attractions: a unique combination of architecture, contemporary art, traditional crafts, shops and gastronomy, in a pleasant setting free of traffic. Situated in one of Barcelona's most iconic areas, just a short distance away from the Montjuïc Fountains, the Poble Espanyol was built in 1929 for the International Exhibition and resembles an actual village with replicas of 117 buildings from different Spanish regions. You'll find a typical Andalusian quarter, a section of the Way of Saint James and examples of Romanesque monastic architecture, among others.

After a long day we returned to the hostel where we enjoyed a more relaxing time, playing pool while some boys watched the film they were showing in the common room area of the hostel.

Our final day in Barcelona! We started the day by taking the coach to visit the Torras Chocolate Factory, founded in 1890. Torras were the first chocolate makers in Spain to commercially produce a range of ‘sugar free’ cocoa products. We had the opportunity to visit the chocolate factory and get first-hand experience of the production process, the ingredients and methods used and the history of chocolate. We were also lucky enough to get a free sample! We were shown an English-speaking video about the production of chocolate, followed by a tour led by a Spanish-speaking guide.

We then travelled to a beautiful city called Girona - Northern Catalonia’s largest city is a jewellery box of museums, galleries and Gothic churches, strung around a tangle of cobbled lanes and medieval walls. There we had lunch before making our way to our final destination of the F1 Catalunya Circuit.

In the guided tour Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, we discovered how a race is organised and controlled, saw where mechanics work and access the briefing room, podium, press room, race control, lounge, boxes and the paddock. We all found the visit very interesting even though the weather was not great it did not dampen our spirits.

Overall, I think the trip was a success, we discovered some of the delights of Barcelona, enjoyed some Spanish culture and sights as well as enjoying our time together as a group. Thank you to all of the boys for being such good company and also a huge thank you to Mr West and Mrs Terry who were invaluable. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank Miss Norton and Mr Berry in the office for their excellent organisation skills, Miss Barlow in reprographics for arranging all of the copying and laminating as well as our mini bus drivers for taking us to the airport Mr Philpot and Mrs Saunders. Also to Rebecca in Diverse Travel who was excellent in arranging our many visits as well as Mr Maxfield for his support.

Hopefully we can look forward to going back to Spain next year after a well-earned rest!

Thank you to everyone for making this visit possible.

Mrs Lindsay