The first part of the day we visited La Mairie. Before we went inside, the tour guide told us a bit about the building and we learned that it was built by Victor Laloux. It had a similar design to the other buildings in Tours, but it was much bigger than I expected it to be.
When we walked inside we saw huge staircase with memorials for soldiers who died during the World Wars. The ceiling above the stairs stood out to me because of the design carved into it. Most of the ceilings either were painted or carved. Next the tour guide took us to a meeting room. I found it interesting that discussions in this room are open to the public and there are chairs for people to sit in and listen. Overall I think the most interesting thing I learned while there was that French people have to have their marriage authorized by the Mayor before they are officially “married”.
After visiting La Mairie we took both a bus and a tram to get to Gadawi (the ropes course). On the tram a little boy tried talking to a few of us. Although he did not make a whole lot of sense, he said a few kind words to us in English before he left. We got off the tram and many of us had a snack while waiting for the bus to arrive. Once we arrived at Gadawi we had lunch. I had a ham and cheese sandwich with chips and I saw a few others eating relatively the same thing. After that, we briefly split into two groups for simplicity: one group for the Americans and one group for the French. Most of the instructors spoke English and the man teaching our group was from Quebec. The rope course was fun but I found it a bit challenging at times. I think most of the group did around four courses, each at varying degrees of difficulty.
