My Italian Tour

I think my biggest adventure has been the two week tour of Italy I took with my school when I was twelve. Not only was it one the first times I had been away from home for an extended period of time, but the country itself and the culture surrounding it was also a new experience. The trip has remained with me and I doubt it will ever leave me. I think part of this is the fact that not only did we visit the usual tourist places; the Coliseum, the Vatican, Pompeii but we also visited places that may only be known to the local people. These ranged from a small café in Rome that we ate lunch in to a food market in a small town on Sardinia that my geography teacher discovered. These have all stayed with me through my life but I think the two experiences that I remember the most vividly are the hike to the top of Mount Vesuvius and a visit to a small beach that seemed to be completely unknown. The hike left vivid memories because how arduous it was. I was only twelve at the time and despite the fact there had been a path cut into the side of the mountain there were still a lot of loose stones and the heat meant some of the trip stayed at the bottom or turned around, never making it to the top. The view from the top was amazing. The day was clear, so the view extended out into the Gulf of Naples and the sea beyond. The beach was also a beautiful piece of scenery that we visited. The water was that bottle green colour that you see in so many brochures that it’s almost become a cliché. I remember me and another student climbing down onto a smaller beach that was close to the one we were supposed to be visiting. As soon as we got to the bottom, a teacher shouted down at us, yelling at us to get back to where we could be seen. The natural urge a young person is to explore, I suppose. Italy is one of the countries that I would love to see again. Some countries, while memorable, just don’t leave the same impression as others. A few leave lasting memories. Italy is the latter.