Our adventure in Sligo
Last summer, from July 8th to the 22,nd our school organized a trip to the wonderful and amazing Sligo county on the west coast of Ireland. In our opinion it has been an unforgettable experience because we improved our English, we discovered more about an amazing land full of history and culture, and most of all, we had a lot of fun.
Sligo’s Irish name Sligeach – meaning shelly place – originates in the abundance of shellfish found in the river and its estuary. The river, nowadays known as the Garavogue river, in the past was also called the Sligeach.
The whole area, from the river estuary in Sligo around the coast to the river at Ballysadare Bay, is rich in marine resources which were used as far back as the Mesolithic period.
So now that we’ve spoken about Irish history we can focus on our trip. It all began on the 8th of July 2012 when we arrived in The Innisfree International College and Convention Centre, a beautiful campus overlooking the huge and lovely lake of Lough Gill. On campus, we enjoyed wonderful landscapes, spacious apartments and different indoor and outdoor facilities such as the language laboratory, the auditorium, the well equipped classrooms and a lot of green fields.
Our English course in Sligo was run by The Emerald Cultural Institute from Dublin.
On our arrival we took an oral and a written test and were then put into the right level. In the morning we had classes from 9.00 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. Teachers were well trained and friendly. We really enjoyed our English lessons.
In the afternoons we went to visit Sligo and its beautiful natural surroundings such as Parke’s Castle, Carrowmore megalithic tombs, Knocknarea mountain and Queen Maeves Tomb. There was a wonderful view of the Atlantic ocean from the top of the mountain! At school we also did a cooking course. We learnt how to make muffins. They are delicious!
The most exciting activities were the sports in the open air. We had the chance to go horse riding along spectacular beaches, to do paddle boarding on Lough Gill and, most of all, we had a fantastic experience: surfing on the waves of the ocean! After a few warm up exercises on the beach the instructor took us among the waves. We felt the excitement of standing up for the first time riding our first wave! It was not easy, but it was really great fun!
In the evenings we listened to Irish music and danced, we played football, we went on a tour boat of Lough Gill, sometimes we played games on the campus. We also went on a fantastic treasure hunt too around the College.
During our first weekend we did a tour in Donegal where we visited Glemcolmcille Folk Village Museum. Then we enjoyed ourselves playing football on the beautiful sandy beach. At last we visited the terrific Slieve League cliffs. The view from the top of the mountain was really amazing!
At the end of the course in Sligo we received a diploma assessing our English level.
Then we spent two days in Dublin. Dublin, the capital of Ireland, is a very nice city situated near the east coast on the river Liffey. In Dublin first we visited The Guinness Storehouse; a unique tour that gives you an idea of the art of beer making.
Then we enjoyed a wonderful city sightseeing tour. On our tour we saw a lot of interesting sights such as O’ Connell street, The General Post Office, Temple Bar, Dublin Castle, Christ Church Cathedral and Phoenix Park. We also visited Trinity College the oldest university in Ireland famous for the Book of Kells. It is a transcription of the four gospels written by Celtic monks around AD 800.
Dublin’s most famous shopping street and our favourite one is Grafton street. We enjoyed our shopping there! At the end of it there is the statue of Molly Malone, heroine of the famous ballad ‘In Dublin fair city’.But the most exciting evening was the one that we spent at Gaiety Theatre in Dublin where we saw ‘Riverdance’ a spectacular dance show. ‘Riverdance’ is a mixture of Irish music and dancing.To conclude it was really great to attend our course in Ireland because we improved our English, we met new people, we discovered a new country and we had wonderful and amazing experiences. We’d like to go back to Ireland next summer!by Giorgio Ramozzi, Andrea Giacomini, Federico Massari, Francesco Boni, Matteo Mazzoleni, Tommaso Lescio, Stefano Fusai
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