As a teenage girl there likely is not a better place to spend your 17th birthday than Paris.
That will be how Whangarei Girls' High School Year 13 student Hannah Park will spend hers on Friday as part of a biannual classics trip to Europe.
A group of 17 students, 13 from Whangarei Boy' High School and four from Whangarei Girls' High School, left today for the two-week trip.
"Australia is the only place I've been so I'm quite excited," Hannah said.
The group has a stopover in Paris on Friday which means she will spend her birthday exploring the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Elysees. The group of Year 12 and 13 students will then spend the next two weeks travelling through Greece and Italy.
"I like the mythology side of things," she said. "Learning about their religion and customs is quite interesting."
Aside from the learning opportunities Hannah said she was also very excited to experience one of the things Europe is most famous for - the food.
Whangarei Boys' classics teacher Scott Crawford said visiting what the students had been learning about for years was a great experience. "It's very hard to imagine what that place is like in three dimensions. It makes so much difference."
It becomes a memory rather than just a picture, he said.
The trip includes visiting the Acropolis, Pompeii, the Colosseum, the Vatican, and the Trevi Fountain.