Over the Easter Break, Year 9 rugby players went on tour to Lake Garda in Italy where they developed their rugby skills and experienced a bit of Italian culture.

Over the Easter Break, Year 9 rugby players went on tour to Lake Garda in Italy where they developed their rugby skills and experienced a bit of Italian culture.

The 25 students and 3 members of staff set off on the 11thApril and flew from Edinburgh to Milan before meeting their tour guide and being escorted to their hotel in Lake Garda. They started their first full day with a training session before making their way to Garda where they had a stroll around the lake and sampled the local ice cream. The day ended with their first fixture against CUS Verona.

The following day students spent the morning in the city of Verona taking in a variety of sights including Juliet's Balcony and the Roman amphitheatre. The second fixture was played in the afternoon against Mantova and the Macmillan boys secured a convincing win, with Cameron Dale scoring a hatrick.

On day four, after morning training, another fixture was played, this time against Valpolicella. This was an incredibly physical and tough encounter with the students very unlucky to lose by the narrowest of 2 point margins.

For the remaining two days, the spent some time in Milan, where they took a tour of the San Siro football stadium and of Milan's famous Cathedral and finally went to unwind at Gardaland, Italy's biggest theme park. On the last night of the trip, students enjoyed stopping off at a pizzeria on the banks ofLake Garda for a pizza night with a stunning view.

Mr Atkinson and Mr Richardson were delighted to see how well the boys rugby improved in such a short period of time, crediting the intense training and challenging nature of the fixtures, whilst Mr Lightfoot was particularly pleased to see the students embracing another culture and enjoying the art, architecture and beauty of Italy as well as picking up the odd Italian phrase.