Twinning visit to Châtenay-Malabry in 2015

The visit to Chatenay Malabry this year coincided with the French national music festival ‘ Le Fete de la Musique ‘ in which organised and impromptu music is played in locations in most towns and villages across the country. That being the case we took Wellington Town Band with us and beside playing in Chatenay they performed two concerts in the prestigious location of the bandstand in the Jardin du Luxembourg in central Paris with an audience of over five hundred people on the Sunday afternoon.

As for the Twinning Association members we arrived on the Friday evening to a brief reception at Chatenay Hotel de Ville before departing with our hosts for the evening. Saturday morning we had a guided tour of the Senate in central Paris made all the more special because the tour was conducted by the Vice – President of the Senate Isabelle Debre , who is the French equivalent of our Speaker of the House of Lords. She took us to areas of the building that are not accessible to the general public. After lunch in the nearby Jardin du Luxembourg we visited the Musee du Cluny which used exhibits to tell the story of the development and history of Paris from it’s very beginnings.

The following day many of our party went with their hosts to various music venues to enjoy the atmosphere of Le Fete de la Musique but we all met up in the evening for a dinner at the Hotel Chateaubriand in Chatenay.

We were up early the next morning to leave for home. It was all too brief a visit but an enjoyable and busy weekend and the friendship between those involved seems to be growing stronger.