Sharon Smith
Special to the Tribune/Advisor
A group of 15 Lake City Secondary students and three adults went on an adventure of a lifetime to Italy during spring break this year.
It was a whirlwind tour of Italy exploring the highlights of this amazing country.
We travelled with Education First Tours (EF Tours), the largest student tour company in the world.
The tours are designed for students who have lots of energy and are eager to learn about the places we explore.
The tour we did was called Bell’ Italia and it started in Venice and finished in Rome.
Our first stop was Vicenza where our beautiful hotel was located.
This wasn’t a usual European hotel it had massive rooms with marble floors and kitchens in every room.
The food was fantastic here and we enjoyed our first taste of Italian pasta.
The next morning we went to the magical city of Venice, which is built on more than 100 small islands.
There are no cars in Venice and we had to take a boat to get to the city. We stopped off at an island to watch Murano glass being made. It is one of the arts that Venice is known for.
Then it was off for a tour of this beautiful city.
We had a guide who told us stories as we walked through the tiny streets that are like a maze, crossing bridges and walking along narrow sidewalks.
We all rode in a gondola along the canals. This is the way the Venetians used to travel. Now they have motor boats and water taxis.
We explored the Doges Palace and learned about the Bridge of Sighs where the prisoners were marched off to prison, sighing as they crossed the bridge and looked out at the world that they wouldn’t be seeing for many years.
We drove through the Tuscan countryside to the Renaissance City of Florence. We met our guide in front of the cathedral or “duomo” and toured around this beautiful city where so many great artists and thinkers lived many years ago.
The churches are so grand and beautifully decorated. Then most of the students went to Pisa for the day to see the Leaning Tower where Galileo did his famous experiments on gravity.
I stayed in Florence and took the remaining students to the Galleria dell’ Academia to see Michelangelo’s David and had a pizza lunch sitting in an outdoor cafe.
I took the kids to the best gelato place in Florence, Vivoli where we indulged in some rich creamy gelato made fresh that day.
Then we met up with the other students and spent the rest of the day shopping and walking around this beautiful town.
Finally, it was off to Rome, the capital of Italy, to take a tour of the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica.
We had a guide who taught us about the amazing frescoes that Michelangelo painted in the Sistine Chapel.
Such an amazing work of art. Then we went through St. Peter’s and were overwhelmed with the sheer size of the largest Christian church in the world.
We spent a few days exploring the wonders of Rome.
First it was the Trevi Fountain where we all threw in a coin to make sure we will return one day.
The Spanish Steps, the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, and then the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. Everywhere you look in Rome there is something amazing to see.
Some of the students went to “Pompeii” which was buried for more than 1,500 years under meters of ash after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, which still looms in the distance. Everything was well preserved and it is now a vast archaeological site.
The other students and I spent the day exploring Rome on our own.
Our first stop was St. Peter’s to watch some of the Palm Sunday Mass. Thousands of people filled the square to be blessed by the Pope.
We went to Castel Sant’Angelo which was built in 134 to 139 AD as a tomb for the Roman emperor Hadrian.
It has also been used as a Papal fortress and has a tunnel that comes directly from the Vatican.
We climbed up hundreds of stairs and had an great view of Rome.
Then we walked to the metro and learned how to take the train. We went to the main train station in Rome.
We had lunch and then continued to walk through the streets to the Victor Emmanuel II Monument which has been nicked named the wedding cake.
We took an elevator to the very top and had fabulous views of the city.
We returned to the Trevi fountain for one last visit before heading to the Capuchin Crypt, a church decorated with bones from hundreds of deceased friars.
The students were amazing on this trip. They were happy and so well behaved.
I couldn’t have asked for a better group to take on my final student tour.
Sharon Smith is a retired teacher who has taken students to Europe on many previous trips around Europe on spring breaks. She will soon start organizing tours for adults.