23rd – 25th November 2012 Harrow Asian Deaf Club’s weekend trip to Paris.
Harrow Asian Deaf Club has worked hard to organise a Festive trip to Paris with a difference which took place on the weekend of 23rd – 25th November 2012.
After tremendous hard work, it finally paid off with a weekend coach trip to Paris with BSL interpreter provided. This provided us with fantastic opportunity to learn and explore different culture and awareness of what Europe offers us. Paris was chosen for it’s destination like no other and this short break give us enough time to really get what we want from our Parisian experience.
The trip started off on an early Friday morning where a coach picked our group from HADC at Bentley Day Centre, Harrow and drove all the way to Dover to catch a ferry to Calais. We enjoyed the ferry as for many of us, it was our first experience on the sea! On arrival to Calais, we continued to travel by coach and arrived at our hotel, Kyriad Hotel Marne – la – Vallee Torcy which was delightful accommodation with continental breakfast provided.
The next day on Saturday, we have had a full day of panoramic tour of Paris include leisurely drive around the main sight of a Paris, where our BSL interpreter were translating the tour’s information about each of the places so deaf people have equal access to information in similar way as hearing people access via spoken language audio version.
We also visited the Heart of Princess Diana- a memorable place where accident happened in central Paris. We then continued with our tour through Paris including Montmartre/Sacre Coeur and visited the Notre Dame Cathedral. We enjoyed a break for lunch and walked around small local shops. We then proceed to a lovely cruise in the River Swine with pleasant warm weather to enjoy the sightseeing. We saw the world renowned Arc de Triomphe, Government Building, President Palace, Champ Elysees, Eiffel Tower and Les Invalides.
After a busy day, we rounded off the late afternoon of walking through the Champ Elysees, a famous long street which was filled with rows of Christmas markets and plenty of Christmas lights, much to our delights. The crowd were immense as the market proved to be very popular. We also saw stalls selling variety of Christmas wine; mince pies, French cheeses and many more; and we sampled on some of the foods on offer and couldn’t resist bagging some bargains as suitable Christmas gifts. On both side of the market from bottom to top of Champ Elysees, we saw two rows of trees decorated in diamond sparkling white Christmas lights with Father Christmas walking in the street, greeting people everywhere he goes.
We managed to get a closer look at the Arc de Triomphe, took some photos and saw the fire burning in the middle of the Arc, to signify the memories of the contributions to French Soldiers during the war.
Our final day was rounded off with a final tour to Eiffel Towers in the heart of Paris. We went up to the top of the Eiffel tower and panoramic view of Paris city and despite the windy weather, we managed to take photos and complete the sightseeing of our tour of Paris before heading back to Harrow on a late Sunday evening.
Feedback from our group members also included:
Mrs Anita Gulckhorn, Pinner: “Enjoyed the tour of Paris and engaging in the sights and culture of Paris. The beautiful of Basclica of Sacre-Coeur being absorbed in senility of this, not your building. The ‘peace’ installation made me contemplate things going on in the world. It was very powerful’”.
Mrs Karen Borland, Stanmore: “Paris weekend was fantastic and I love to see Eiffel tower sighting and especially my favourite part is the Christmas market with Christmas light. It made me feel so exciting to part of this. A huge thank you very much for HADC in organising the trip, it was so brilliant and fantastic!”
Geeta & Rakesh Tawakley, North Harrow: “We are a retired couple, we was amazed to see our trip to Paris with wonderful experience, it made us feel proud to be part of this trip and to learn about Paris through BSL interpreter. It gave us a lot of thought and information was very useful. It was good for HADC encouraged everyone to be involved in this trip. We will not forget this trip. So beautiful memory!”
Priti Vinda, Northolt: “Brilliant experience and it was lovely to see what Paris looked like and it made me feel want to come back here again especially with the BSL interpreter, who interpreted excellently for our trip.”
Sanjay Khandhia, Stanmore: “It was a pleasure experiencing Paris with HADC. It has to be the best trip to date! We have laughed and joked and eaten our way round Paris. It was fantastic getting to know everyone and we feel more like family than ever. I hope I get to go on many more adventures with HADC!! Thank you all on the trip for making it so fun!!”
Chandrka Paun & Mrudola Khandhia (cousins): “Stylish Paris easy to find our way. Feel like Christmas as if it was really here, with all the romantic festive lighting. Happy mix of modern and history resulting in a dramatics city!”
