BLOG: Softball Trio in Italy with Beyond Sports Tours

Enjoy a series of blogs from a trio of UNC Greensboro (UNCG) softball student-athletes that traveled to Italy with Beyond Sports Tours in mid-July. Recent graduate Brooklynn Maxwell, rising senior Grace Loftin, and rising junior Rhyann Jones traveled to Italy for nine days. Beyond Sports Tours was established in 2010 and creates mutually beneficial opportunities for U.S. student-athletes, international athletes, and international youth to enjoy a life-changing cross-cultural experience through sport. 

Rising junior Rhyann Jones wrote about the middle days of the trip. 

July 12

Day 4 –  

Hello everyone! My name is Rhyann Jones and I am a rising junior pitcher on the UNCG softball team! I will be taking you along as we travel through Italy and experience all of the amazing things it has to offer! 

Grace Loftin, Brooklynn Maxwell, and myself were offered an opportunity to play abroad with an organization called Beyond Sports Tour. This tour is full of Division I student-athletes from all over America. We were chosen to tour Italy and play a few of their top national teams. 

Today we traveled to Lake Como! We originally had a boat tour planned but it rained the night before and the lake flooded into the city and had too much debris for a boat to safely travel through the water. Instead, we visited the Como Cathedral, also known as the last gothic cathedral built in Italy and is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. We then had lunch and gelato to finish our day in Lake Como and headed to our game! 

We played the Bollate A series team which is a professional team here in Italy and we won! Their team was full of Japan national team members, Olympians, and a few former Division I  student-athletes from America! It was really interesting to see that no matter the cultural differences we had, our sport was the one thing that kept us connected. 

Our dinner was prepared by the Bollate Series A staff and we were showered with love throughout our time there! 

July 13

Day 5 - 

Today we had a pizza making class and we learned all about how the Italians make their phenomenal pizza! 

Fun fact: half of the schools here in Italy teach the students to put olive oil in the pizza dough to make the crust more crunchy and the other half teaches to never put olive oil in the dough so the crust will remain light and fluffy. After we finished our pizzas we headed to the Milan city center where we saw the famous Duomo di Milano. This cathedral was nothing short of amazing! 

After we walked around Milan and explored a few of us headed to see Taylor Swift in concert! It was amazing to see and meet people from all over while we attended the concert. Every day here is nothing short of amazing and you are never quite sure what will be getting thrown at you!

July 14

Day 6 - 

A day in Venice! After we arrived at the boat station we took a short boat ride over to Venice, which is one of the only ways you can get to the island. Weekend visitors had to pay a tax to be able to get into the city so we had to carry a ticket around all day in order to be able to stay on the island. 

We then went on a walking tour where we learned about the consistent flooding and structures of Venice. While we were there, we kept seeing random puddles all around the city, but we had realized that it hadn’t rained in days. When we asked the tour guide she explained to us that Venice was built on marshes and the water that we were seeing was coming up from the ground and it happens when the winds are pushing the water inland. Our tour guide, Rita, has had to walk in shin deep water to get back to her home because of the strong winds multiple times. 

After our waking tour we went on a gondola ride around the canals of Venice which was so cool! After our day in Venice we headed back to the hotel where they prepared dinner and dessert for us. This day was nothing short of amazing and we enjoyed every minute of it! 

Stay tuned to read more about our adventures in Italy!

Blog 1 - By: Grace Loftin