From June 13-25 Italian teacher Judy Branzburg took 31 students for a 13-day trip to Florence, Rome, Venice, Pompeii, Sorrento and the island of Capri accompanied by four parent chaperones, a teacher and an Italian tour guide.

This year’s trip to Italy was the best one yet, according to Branzburg. “I hope that students will have the passion to go back many times, and even study abroad in college,” she said.

Students in third or fourth-year Italian who covered the cost of the trip were eligible to participate. The trip involved touring museums and famous landmarks in the mornings and exploring cities on their own until dinner.

Senior Marcy Silver had never been to Europe before this trip. “Experiencing Italian culture was definitely a highlight,” she said. Several major sights stood out in her mind. “We saw the Coliseum in Rome, the Statue of David, the Pompeii Ruins and lots more,” she said. Her favorite part of the trip was walking along the canals in Venice.

Other students said they thought the Italian cuisine was the true standout. “The pizza was 10 times better than anything at home,” senior Kevin Obana said. Obana added that some locations on the trip made him feel at home, while others impressed him in different ways.

“My favorite city was Florence because it was most like San Francisco, but Rome was the most historically impacting and Venice the most picturesque,” he said.

Italy also made an impression on senior Jairo Rueda, who said he enjoyed the beauty of Italian cities but was less pleased with the cost of the trip and the four-hour delay for the long 10-hour plane ride back home.

But Rueda’s memories weren’t marred by these technical details. His favorite parts of the trip were “the beaches in Sorrento, and an island called Lido, where you could walk to the beach and see the sun set,” he said.

According to Obana, another highlight of the trip was the ongoing playful flirtation between the boys on the trip and their older Italian tour guide, Francesca. “We had fun hinting at her while she went along with our terrible jokes,” he said. The competition even led to a reenactment of the dating game, won by senior Max Newman, according to Obana. Silver said the game “definitely made the tour bus rides more interesting.”

This is the third year that Branzburg organized the Italy trip. She took her first trip with an Italian class in 2003, then in 2005 and most recently in 2007. “It’s fun to see things through my students’ eyes,” she said. She organized the trip with a student travel program and planned meetings with student participants and their parents beforehand.