Sixth Form Trip to Alghero

For the first week of the October Remedy, 30 Sixth Form pupils flew to Sardinia, for a week of Italian cultural and linguistic immersion in (mostly) sunny Alghero. They attended language lessons at Centro Mediterraneo Pintadera in the mornings, and completed a variety of activities in the afternoons, ranging from a boat trip to some local caves, a local cheese tasting and lesson about Italian gestures, a football match against their Italian hosts, and a treasure hunt around the centro storico.

This trip is incredibly beneficial to our Italianists as they are able to stay with an Italian host family, who has a son or daughter who is roughly the same age as them, and they are fully immersed in Italian family life. After a slightly awkward first meeting in Alghero airport, the boys went off to spend the afternoon in famiglia, eating large Sunday lunches with their new families, playing on the beach, and watching local football games. The Paulines threw themselves into Italian life with plenty of gusto, and a personal highlight was receiving news (and even photos and videos!) of them helping prepare the evening meal, learning the secrets of la cucina italiana from their new mamme; some examples included frying fettine, assembling tiramisù, and making gnocchi from scratch – I very much hope that they have recreated these dishes for their families back in England!

In spite of a few storms, which resulted in last minute changes to the programme, we had a fantastic time, and the pupils returned full of pasta and new vocabulary and phrases to communicate in Italian.