Taking Class on the Road

Last weekend, three quarters of the Umbra Institute student body went on academic field trips around Italy.

Students enrolled in the Food Studies Program met Professor Simon Young in Florence on Friday morning. The group strolled through the international food market in Santa Croce, sampled chocolate from what Young describes as the best cioccolateria in Italy, and concluded the trip with a late lunch at la Pentola dell’Oro. The restaurant serves food made from recipes of the Middle Ages; the students’ meal included ginger pasta, chocolate-stewed meat, and mashed-potato pasta.

On Saturday, Professor Antonella Valorosa accompanied her students of “Contemporary Italy: Culture and Society” to Siena on Saturday. Students explored San Domenico Church; walked around the Piazzo del Campo, where the world-famous Palio occurs every July; and visited the Contrada dell’Aquila. It is a rare honor to visit the contrada, one of the 17 close-knit neighborhoods/clans that are usually prohibited to the public.

Italian faculty and staff members offered students participating in the Direct Enrollment program a comprehensive tour of Umbria and Lazio. After a tour of the small Etruscan city of Viterbo, the group visited the Park of the Monsters in Bomarzo. They finished the day with a four-course meal in Orvieto.