This year as a school, we decided to go to Italy for our annual senior school tour. Transition and Fifth year students had the opportunity to go experience what all the hype was about in Lake Garda, Venice and Verona.

We departed from school at 1:15 am on Thursday morning on the 2nd of May and this is when all the fun began, as we were wide-awake and buzzing to go and kick started our holiday with singsongs on our way to Dublin airport.

We arrived in Milan and got a double decker bus to Lake Garda, with the sun splitting the stones and we had a little while to roam by ourselves around the beautiful little streets in Lake Garda.

We then met up together again and hopped on a speedboat on Lake Garda and right then we felt like we were Beyoncé!! (Even the teachers)

Later on that night, we got the chance to make our very own pizzas and ended the first day on a high!

Our school trip to ‘Bella Italia’ Lake Garda, Venice and Verona
Our school trip to ‘Bella Italia’ Lake Garda, Venice and Verona

Bright eyed and bushy tailed the next morning we set off for Gardaland the theme park. On our arrival it started raining but did not hold us back, we could not get inside the gate quick enough! There was something in there for everyone! Everybody was well and truly awake by the, a night’s sleep missed or not! Some rides were not so surprisingly TERRIFYING but BRILLIANT fun! (For some). After eight hours of rollercoaster after rollercoaster, we departed for our next adventure!

We went to a shopping centre, did a bit of shopping for ourselves, got a bite to eat and then went disco bowling, which was great craic too! We finally decided it was time to call it a day and headed back to our hotel, where not all of us called it a day and made the most of our stay with our friends.

The next morning we took a spin out to Venice, where we got on another boat. We took a stroll around Venice for a while and then met up again to be given the tour of the city on water in which we were given the chance to learn about its history including a tour of St Mark’s Cathedral, which was very interesting as it is so unique to Venice and is thousands of years old.

Our school trip to ‘Bella Italia’ Lake Garda, Venice and Verona
Our school trip to ‘Bella Italia’ Lake Garda, Venice and Verona

The holiday was coming to an end and so the next morning we checked out before departing to Verona where we visited the Amphitheater, we took a good walk around and were amazed at how well kept it is! We could not go to Verona and not pay a visit to Juliet’s house therefore we went inside Juliet’s house and stood on her balcony rhyming off the quotes we remembered from junior cert English.

We were given a guided tour of the Alfa Romeo museum where we were told all about the Alfa Romeo cars and their history!

We had one last destination to reach before the dreaded airport to back home and that was once again a shopping centre where we did our last minute buys!

The bus journey to the airport was short and everything was coming to an end but we were determined to make the most of the last few hours and therefore had another little sing song all the way home (even while boarding for our plane)

We had an AMAZING holiday together as a group and it’s something we will never ever forget about our time in the Pres!!!

By Lily-Mae McDonagh and Lucy Scholze

Our school trip to ‘Bella Italia’ Lake Garda, Venice and Verona
Our school trip to ‘Bella Italia’ Lake Garda, Venice and Verona