Free Travel #3 (Part 1)

We've just gotten a lot of pictures loaded from the trip to Assisi and everything after that. I will try to update some of the earlier posts to include photos.

Last Thursday morning the exodus from the hotel began for the third free travel period. It seems as though many students were planning to spend nearly the entire time in Paris, with some possible side trips to Belgium. Others went to Switzerland (again), while one small group was planning to go all the way to Denmark. I believe there was another group with the Czech and Slovak Republics in their sights. I'm sure there will be some interesting stories to hear once everyone is back. Five students, Melissa (the program assistant), Jenny Towns, and my family all stayed here at the hotel.

Although we slept here every night during the travel period, we went out every day to visit places in the region we had not yet seen. On Thursday we actually left before most of the students to go to Cortona, which we saw (insufficiently) in early September. We picnicked at the Medici fortress atop the city and marveled at the huge fog bank below us. It was like being in an airplane. Descending to the main part of town, we visited the museum of the Etruscan Academy, an organization founded in the eighteenth century to study the ancient civilization that preceded the Romans in this region. We enjoyed our time in town, and on the way out stopped the car at a couple of Etruscan tombs that have been excavated. We also stopped a few minutes at a little town called Montecchio between Cortona and Castiglion Fiorentino to see a magnificent castle that dominates the town. Unfortunately, after driving on some really tiny roads to make it up to the castle, we found it closed for renovations. We did get to see a lot of people harvesting olives, though (by hand!), and that was interesting.

On Friday we drove up into the Casentino region north of Arezzo to visit several places. First was La Verna, where St. Francis of Assisi is said to have received the stigmata (the wounds of the crucifixion) as a mark of God's special favor. The place is isolated in the hills, but there is a significant pilgrimage infrastructure there. We got some good pictures and met a busload of American Catholics. Our second stop was in the small town of Poppi, which has another impressive castle; this one was actually open, and we all got to tour it and climb the tower. Finally, we visited another hermitage, this one at Camaldoli, which houses about 40 Carthusian monks and has a nice Baroque church that is open to the public. It was good day, but a tiring one, and we were glad to get back to Sobaria. Vickie became very excited when she finally learned how to make cappuccino in the machine in the kitchen, and we have had a cup nearly every day since!