The inside perspective....

School trips can have a great impact on students, but few will beat a trip to Italy. In my last post I talked about my impressions of the school Italy trip in October 2008. I thought it good for me to add to this the impression of one of the students on the trip. Here is the true impact I was looking for when I spent so much time and effort organising this trip.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Italy Trip Report by Dan

Friday:
Everyone was tired at 3:00 am on the Friday morning when we were expected to be leaving Sherfield for Heathrow. Mr Griffiths greeted us warmly (even though it was freezing!), and miraculously, we flew through the names on the register with none absent, and we were on our way. Heathrow was surprisingly busy at 3:30 and at last we past customs and were on the plane. Spirits were running high and so was the plane! Most of us dozed on the plane hoping to catch up on some sleep, but we were rudely awoken by a jolt as we touched down in Italia. Almost as soon as we had left the airport, we experienced the efficient public transport, the metro and buses. We checked in to our gleaming hotel, and flung ourselves into our rooms, only to be dragged out again and taken to see the famous Colloseum.
The Colloseum was an experience none of us will ever forget. As we emerged from the labyrinth of the metro tunnels, the colossal building towered above us and we were all eager to go inside. The teachers organised guides, who took us around the inside, upstairs, through arches and around the stadium, pointing out details and facts that a brochure would not have been able to supply. We saw the seats of the stadium that were expected to seat… and the underground passages that the fighting animals were to be kept in and the bowl of the arena, that could be filled with water to re-enact sea battles and contests.
After leaving the Colloseum, the guides accompanied us to the very heart of Ancient Rome, the ruins of the forums and temples of the gods. We worked our way through the work booklets that Mr Roberts had prepared for us, sketching buildings and making notes on what the guides said. As the perfect end to the perfect day, we were led through the city to a pizza restaurant.
Saturday:
The Vatican City! I think I can speak for all of us that we thought today was going to be the best day of the trip. We were not wrong. Of course, we had all heard of the renaissance and we were all eager to see Michelangelo’s masterpiece, but there was a lot more than I thought there was going to be. Vatican City was a whole new state, so we had to go through customs just like at an airport. When we had got through and forced our way through the crowds, we went out to a courtyard, giving us an excellent view of the city. Domes and towers and pillars and gardens stretched out in front of us. There was so much to see, we were whisked into the museum. This museum easily rivalled the Louvre, displaying the most incredible works of art I have ever seen. The museum led us through a maze of halls filled with paintings, covering all the walls and the ceilings. There was a long corridor with Maps the size of a large classroom floor, showing Mediterranean Islands, Italy up to the Alps and parts of northern Africa. These were to show visitors that their hosts were educated about the area they were living in. Mr Murphy O’Connor and Mr Roberts told us all they new about everything we saw and at the end of the day, our heads were buzzing. We had seen so much in so little time, and most of it was extremely famous. But the museum visit increased in magnificence until it reached a crescendo of the sighting of the Sistine chapel at last. I was captivated by the awe inspiring paintings, 50 feet up, that had been painted by a man lying on his back for years on end. Each section of the chapel should have taken 10 years each to paint, but there were about 20 of these sections and more made by Michelangelo elsewhere in the museum. Not only was there the paintings part of the museum, but museums have history things too. Whole rooms dedicated to the Egyptians, with mummies and statues, halls of stuffed animals and the creation painting. We were taken out of the chapel for some lunch with painful necks from staring at a ceiling for ten minutes. We left the museum to go out into Saint Peter’s Square and Basilica. This was incredible too, with towering pillars topped with 12 foot tall statues of the other saints and past popes.
We had pizza again for dinner that night, but when we got back to the hotel, Miss Driver had prepared a quiz night for us and we split into teams to compete for chocolate! In the end, Mr Roberts helped the year 10s win, and we dragged our feet back up the stairs to bed. We were waking up early tomorrow, to travel south!
Sunday:
We hauled our cases out of our rooms and down the marble staircase of the hotel. We bundled into the coach and we drove down the west coast of Italy. We were to stop off at Pompeii and get a guide. She showed us a roman villa that had been left in fantastic condition after it had been covered in ash. The guide led us through the streets of Pompeii pointing out buildings of interest including the basilica, a Mc Donald’s restaurant and a forum. In the forum hundreds of items like pots, hairbrushes, dolls, tools and bones had been collected, as well as a few of the most famous plaster of Paris sculptures of the Pompeian people in their last positions at the time of the eruption. We were driven up Mount Vesuvius as far as we could go in the coach, and walked the rest of the way which was tiring but worth it. We got to stare deep into the cavernous depths of the great volcano, as it snoozed and emitted bursts of steam at random intervals. After our visit to Pompeii, Mr Roberts and Mr Murphy O’Connor had planned a little detour to Casino, to see the Monte Casino Monastery. The building had been completely obliterated except for a single brick in World War 2, when the Americans had decided it was best to bomb the holy building until it was no more, to try and get rid of the Germans who were in control of the hills and mountains either side of the valley that the city of Casino rested in. Mr Murphy O’Connor had researched the history of the area and gave us a long but interesting talk about it under the sun. We moved from there to Britain by coach. This might be confusing but it’s true. The Italians had designated an area of land for the British soldiers to bury their dead after the end of ww2. It was a shocking experience walking through the gates and seeing the gravestones stretching out into the distance. The gardeners had even planted oak trees to make it seem like home and there was a beautiful mosaic surrounding a pond in the centre of the graveyard. Colossal stone slabs bearing thousands of names of soldiers who had fought in Italy at the time, from all parts of Britain and other countries, towered up into the sky. The sun was setting on the horizon and there was a slight breeze. It was very moving and we spent some time there until it started to get dark and we were hungry. We moved on in the bus and arrived at Sorrento as the sun disappeared over the mountains. The bags were put in our allotted rooms, had dinner in a splendid dining room, and went out for an evening stroll through the city. The night was warm, until it rained, and lots of souvenirs were bought. We dragged our heavy feet back to the hotel and crawled into bed.
Monday:
The last day. As soon as we woke up, we were told to get dressed and packed. We put our cases on the bus, but we weren’t going straight to the airport. A mammoth trip to Pompeii had been arranged and we were also going to Vesuvius to peer into the depths of its crater. Everyone knew about the huge dormant volcano that had blasted its top off and engulfed whole cities in its pyroclastic flow, but we didn’t think we would have to climb it! To be fair to the bus driver, he took us as far as the bus could possibly go, but then we had to walk the last part. The air was much thinner at the top even though numerous clouds proved the gasses were present, and the hole in the top of Mount Vesuvius was a lot bigger than I thought! It stretched across my whole view and bursts of steam or some other gas spat out of various hidden holes in the sides of the crater. After a while of staring into the depths of a hill that had killed millions of people, we stumbled back down the side to the bus to be taken to Pompeii. Personally, Pompeii was my favourite part of the whole trip. I had read a lot of books about Pompeii and had done a lot of projects on the city in my old school. I was captivated by every metre of the place; hanging on the guide’s every word. She took us into a Pompeian villa, pointing out every aspect of the ancient domicile. My old Latin textbook had pictures of Pompeii and the plaster casts of the people and animals who had lived there so long ago and I had always imagined going there, and even living there in the days of the roman empire. The guide showed us all sorts of shops including a Mc Donalds and an Odd Binns. I really loved visiting Pompeii so when our circuit was complete and we headed away to the airport I was sad to be going because I had had such a great time with my friends and exploring the wonders of Italy that still survive hundreds of years later. When we got back to England it was pitch black and the pilot treated us to a glide around London, to see the luminescent glow of the cities night lights.
The Italy Trip has been the highlight of my life, and if you haven’t been to any of the places described above, and you get the chance, I recommend you take it.