Fifteen students and two teachers attended the spring break trip to Italy. Sophomore Lucy Jones went on the trip with a few friends.

  “It seemed like a really good opportunity to make new friends and see new places,” Jones said.

  The group went to eight cities in eight days.

  “I expected to be constantly moving and really busy, but we did get more free time than I thought we would and that was really nice,” Jones said.

  This trip was a good learning experience into what traveling in a foreign country can be like.

  “I opted to go on the Italy trip because of the influence that international travel has had on me. Two years ago, I did a summer trip to Iceland, and that had a huge opening in my perspective,” senior Alex Roush said.

  Every day, the group had a few hours of free time to explore the cities, as well as a walking tour with an expert local guide.

  “There was not a time when we weren’t traveling about somewhere, spending our time as we wished. I also knew a lot of the towns were going to be bigger and it was going to be a very independent sort of trip because we are all almost adults, so we ought to make smart decisions. We were very independent, functioning in our own groups but sticking together in a safe way, and it was really fun having that sort of independence,” Roush said.

  The group traveled to Venice, Florence, Pisa, San Gimignano, Assisi, Sorrento, Naples and Rome.

  “I liked San Gimignano because of how small it was, and I also really liked Florence,” sophomore Payton Lamb said.