April 28, 2024
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16 Hall High School students travel to Spain

Students learned about Spanish culture through exploration

By Shaw Local News Network
Hall High School students traveled to Spain, including a visit to the Royal Palace.

Hall High School students traveled to Spain, including a visit to the Royal Palace. (Photo provided by Kelli Curan)

Hall High School students have gone international.

Sixteen students and two chaperones went to Spain with the Spanish Department. This trip has been planned since September of 2021.

Students that attended the trip were Amin Marenda-Gentry, Robert Cavanah, Blake Lusk, Anthony Fiocchi, Jayden Jones, Hope Whightsil, Ella Taliani, Lili Heredia, Shechinah Ridley, Clara Jablonski, Abby Kaszynski, Jasmin Martinez, Celeste Martinez, Lupita Perez, Mya McLaughlin and Hannah Vanaman. Accompanying the students were Hall High School’s two Spanish teachers, Katie Lawrence and Mary Donovan.

Hall High School students traveled to Spain with the school's Spanish Department, including a visit to the Prado museum.

Hall High School students traveled to Spain with the school's Spanish Department, including a visit to the Prado museum. (Photo provided by Kelli Curran)

The trip started in Spain’s capital city, Madrid, where the group discovered the Puerta del Sol, the Royal Palace, La Plaza Mayor, El Mercado de San Miguel and the Prado Art Museum. Next, students traveled south to Córdoba. While there they had a cooking class where they learned to cook traditional Spanish food. They took a tour of La Mezquita while there. This is a Muslim mosque built more than 1,000 years ago that was transformed into a Catholic cathedral around the 1200s.

From Córdoba, the group traveled to Seville. There they toured Las Setas, which is the largest wooden structure in the world. They experienced a river boat cruise on El Río Guadalquivir, sightseeing throughout the city, the Plaza de España, Seville’s Cathedral (the third largest cathedral in the world), and they went to the top of the Giralda Bell Tower. They relaxed in a theater to watch an authentic Flamenco Show, which they said was a highlight of the trip.

Next, the group went to Spain’s former capital city, Toledo. The king of Spain moved the capital city from Toledo to Madrid in the 1500s. Since then, the city has kept much of its historical charm and architecture. Staff and students were able to do a walking tour that included Toledo’s many churches and a sword and jewelry making factory.

Throughout the trip, the students were able to use their Spanish by communicating with locals and experiencing things that had been talked about in class prior to the trip. Every day was better than the one before it, the chaperones said.

Students had experiences and made memories that will last a lifetime and hopefully encourage them to continue to explore the world, Hall’s Spanish teachers said.