Sample New York French Student Field Trip Itinerary

Depart for New York City on a deluxe motorcoach.

11:00am     Arrive at Rockefeller Center (pictured right) "the Heart of New York", meet your French-speaking guide at the corner of 49th Street and Rockefeller Plaza.

Your guide will take you on a short orientation tour that will begin at the world-famous lower plaza, where one of your classmates can take your picture in front of the gilded statue of Prometheus , and will end at an under- ground McDonald's where you'll be free for an inexpensive lunch on your own.

12:00pm     After lunch, you can walk with your guide to the French Library, pictured above, (in Rockefeller Center's French Empire Building) where you can buy French books and magazines, posters, T-shirts, music and videos, and other gifts and souvenirs from France. Time-permitting, you can also walk across Fifth Avenue, for a visit to the 150-year-old Saint Patrick's Cathedral, the largest Catholic cathedral in the United States.

1:00pm     Meet the bus in front of the Today Show studio and depart for the Cloisters (pictured left) a world-famous museum of medieval art, in Fort Tryon Park at the northernmost tip of Manhattan Island.

2:00pm     There, upon arrival, you will step off the bus and into a 12th century European monastery built with stone from churches throughout France and Spain. (The Cloisters' hilltop location, in a park overlooking the Hudson River, is said to be the closest approximation of a European setting possible anywhere in North America.)

Your visit will begin in the Cuxa Cloister a much-photographed courtyard, reconstructed from a monastery in the northeastern Pyrenees that had been in both France and Spain, at various times, as the border moved back and forth during periods of hostilities between the two countries.

Among other things, you will visit the Fuentidueña Chapel, which had been painstakingly dismantled, stone by stone, in the Spanish village of Fuentidueña, and reconstructed at the Cloisters as a permanent loan from the government of Spain.

Before you leave, you will also view the magnificent Unicorn Tapestries, a series of seven priceless tapes- tries that had been stolen from Francois VI de la Rochefoucauld during the French Revolution and used for many years by peasants to protect vegetables from freezing.

3:00pm    After your tour, you'll depart immediately for your hotel in the Meadowlands of New Jersey.

3:45pm     Arrive at the immaculate Hampton Inn, Harmon Meadow, in suburban New Jersey, and check in, freshen up and dress for dinner.

4:45pm     Reassemble in the lobby, then depart for an evening of French culture, beginning with a 6:00pm dinner at Les Sans Culottes, a quaint country- French restaurant on a quiet residential street not far from the Theatre District.

7:15pm     Apres diner, your group will depart for a performance of one of the following French- themed Broadway musical productions:

The Phantom of the Opera, the tragic story about a disfigured recluse who lives, unseen in the catacombs of the Paris Opera House, and his obsessive love for beautiful young soprano who performs there; or

Les Miserables, the stage adaptation of Victor Hugo's epic novel of the French Revolution; or

Beauty and the Beast, Disney Theatrical Productions' adaptation of the beloved French folk tale about how an ugly exterior can hide a beautiful soul (and vice versa).

After the play, you will meet your bus and return to the hotel.

Nightly security begins upon arrival at about 11:00pm.

7:00am     Breakfast in the hotel, then check out of your room and place your bags on the bus.

8:00am     Depart for Battery Park, the birthplace of New York City, in Lower Manhattan.

9:15am     Board the Circle Line Ferry for a short ride to Liberty Island, where you and your classmates will have about 20 minutes to take photographs of the 300- foot-high Statue of Liberty (pictured right).

It's copper skin is hung on a central tower designed by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, who is somewhat better known for the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

The Statue of Liberty was, of course, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States.

10:00am     Re-board the ferry to Ellis Island. There, upon arrival, you'll visit the magnificently restored immigration depot through which seventeen million people passed between 1892 and 1954, during the greatest wave of migration the world has ever known.

11:45am     After your Ellis Island visit, you'll board the Circle Line Ferry for the last time, and return to Battery Park, during which you'll get a magnificent view of Lower Manhattan.

12:15pm     Meet your bus and transfer to the South Street Seaport.

12:30pm     Upon arrival at the historic Seaport (the heart of the 19th century port of New York) you will be free for lunch on your own at one of the many fast-food restaurants and food stands at Pier 17.

1:00pm     After lunch, you'll be free for about an hour for souvenir-shopping and picture-taking at one of New York City's most popular attractions.

2:00pm     Meet the bus and depart for a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

3:00pm     There, upon arrival, you will view the works of the French Impressionists from the Met's collection of 3,000 European paintings.

Following your viewing of the magnificent works of Monet (pictured at left), Manet, Cézanne, Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec, among many others, your group will be free for an hour to view some of the icons in the American Wing, including George Washington Crossing the Delaware , and a number of other very familiar works by Grant Wood, Edward Hopper and Georgia O'Keeffe.

In short, there will be something here to inspire every member of the group.

4:30pm     Meet the bus and depart for home.

Curious about the weather? We recommend that you review the weather now and again a few days before your trip to guarantee the right wardrobe.