Trekking Tuscany 2008: Day 1: Going to School, Departing for Italy!

Description:

An historical ramble through Tuscany with Dante as tour guide! This course will integrate the history of the Middle Ages with creative writing and the personal experience of the hill towns of Tuscany. The course will travel to Rome for 2 nights with possible visits to the Vatican, the Roman Forum, etc. From Rome the students will travel by train to Florence and be introduced to the world of Dante. The group will then trek through several Tuscan towns and villages including Castelnuovo dell'Abate, Pienza and Montepulciano. Along the way the students will read parts of Dante’s Divine Comedy and discuss the changing nature of literature, art and society in Medieval Italy.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Day 1: Going to School, Departing for Italy!

Today is the first day of M-Term. We're going to school as if it's a regular day. Most of us arrived on time for school, but there were a few stragglers that came in late. We started the day off by going over the itinerary for the trip. We then all selected a topic to research, based on where we will be traveling. Mr. Aldredge then gave us all a bit of reading to do. We read the introduction to The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. While we're trekking we will be reading the rest of the stories. We left school at 4:00 PM and took a bus to JFK. We arrived at JFK at 6:00 and then had to wait for our 9:00 flight. The plane ride was very long and most of us had difficulty sleeping, but we arrived in Rome at 5:30 AM.