The Best of Classical Italy

Last spring, some college friends of ours from St. Olaf called and said they were interested in going on a trip to Italy led by Jim Gilbert and his wife Sandy.

Jim is a consulting naturalist for WCCO Radio. He writes and teaches extensively — he was a science teacher and naturalist for 30 years with Hopkins Public Schools (where I worked for 19 years). Even though Jim is a Gustavus Adolphus College graduate (St. Olaf and Gustavus are friendly rivals :-), our St. Olaf friends are longtime listeners to his "Nature Notes" radio show on WCCO Radio, and were enthusiastic about going on a trip led by him. So in June, the six of us decided to take the plunge and sign up for the trip to Italy.

This will be a "different kind of trip" for Greg and I as we are accustomed to planning all aspects of our trips ourselves. However, after our orientation meeting where we had a chance to meet the other travelers (the group size is about 28), we are very excited. It is great to have someone else in charge of all the logistics — we're just looking forward to seeing some cities in Italy that we haven't been to; meeting some new friends; and learning from Jim and our U.S. and Italian tour guides.