The Italian friends were entertained wonderfully on Friday morning by the Alton College Band who concluded their performance by playing Italy's National Anthem. They so delighted their audience that they were immediately invited back to Montecchio Maggiore to star with an evening performance in the annual area band competition. In joyful mood, the Italian visitors with their Altonian hosts then went into the Town Hall for the Mayor's Civic Reception.

Following this the visitors divided into groups for guided tours of Alton whilst the Montecchian Mayor's representative, Professor Chilese and the President of Montecchio's Twinning Association, Carlo Zanin first visited the new English Study School at Eggars followed by a tour of Lord Mayor Treloar's College.

During the remainder of their visit they had a skittles evening at the French Horn, spent Saturday on a coach visit to Bath and then after a day with their host families they had a final celebratory meal at Lasham Gliding Club

Ten students aged between 11 and 14 from our twin town Montecchio Maggiore in the Veneto in Northern Italy are attended a new language school in Alton.    They arrived on 28th June eager for their first day learning to speak English at Eggars School.  The school ended on 11th July and they returned home on Sunday 13th.

  This was a new venture in the twinning programme and it is proving to be a great success.  Eggars School was most helpful in organising the  accommodation and being most attentive to the needs of the pupils and the requirements of the three teachers. Eggars pupils gave a warm welcome to the Italian Students by being friendly and encouraging in conversations.

The students were visited at their Eggars base on Friday by Senor Carlo Zanin, the President of the Montecchio Twinning Association and Professor Luciano Chilese, the Deputy Mayor  and Cultural Attache of Montecchio Maggiore.
Both representatives of their town were delighted with the organisation and provision for the students and are extremely hopeful that this might be the introduction to a regular short summer school.

The Italian Students began their classes at 09.30 am each day. After lunch they followed various activities, such as spening two afternoons in local primary schools, visiting Guildford, exploring the town and its market and having a day in London.

On the final Friday, Alton Town Mayor, Atul Patel, held a barbeque for the students and teachers during which the ATTA President, Pam Bradford, gave each of them a 10th Anniversary paperweight as a momento of their visit.