A Day in Assisi

Saturday was another free day for us; it seems so strange to write that after the busyness of most of the semester. I decided to take the family and any students who wanted to go to Assisi, which is about an hour and fifteen minutes away from Citerna. In the end, four students took me up on the offer, so we drove the minibus through the rain down the E45 to the pilgrimage site, finding a parking place right around 10:00.

As approached the Basilica of St. Francis, it struck me that we were there on a holy day, All Saints Day. Of course that meant that the major churches of Assisi were packed with pilgrims, and that there were numerous services being held in the churches throughout the day. As a result the majority of St. Francis's church was inaccessible to us. However, we were able to go into the crypt to see his tomb. I think it was good for the students to see a full Italian church, whatever else might have happened. After leaving St. Francis's, which is near the bottom of the town, we walked up to Piazza Matteotti, and then turned around and slowly made our way back down through the town, following a walking tour in Rick Steves's guidebook.

We walked through a neighborhood that is built around and incorporates a first-century Roman amphitheater. We went into the cathedral dedicated to San Rufino, where St. Francis, St. Clare, and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II were all baptized. We spent some time in the Basilica of Santa Chiara (St. Clare), named after a convert of St. Francis who founded her own semi-monastic order, the Poor Clares, for women. We saw St. Clare's tomb in the crypt, but were unable (because of an ongoing service) to get to the chapel containing the crucifix that is supposed to have spoken to Francis in a vision. In the oldest part of Assisi, we saw a Roman temple to Minerva (Corinthian columns and all) that had been converted into a Christian church in the Middle Ages. To top it all off, we had some magnificent views of the Umbrian countryside from several vantage points along the route.

We ate lunch in a cafeteria near St. Clare's church, and made it back to the bus around 1:45. I would have liked to have stayed longer and perhaps driven up to the top of Mt. Subasio to see one of Francis's retreats, but it was raining on us again, and Jonathan had asked us to have the bus back in Citerna by 3:00 so that a group of students heading into Florence could ride it into Arezzo. So we returned for a more or less relaxing afternoon and evening.

Classes, Visitors, and a Party

We have had five consecutive days of class since Monday, and everyone has been in the thick of the school routine. Students are working on papers on projects, and things are proceeding much like they did last week. There have been more soccer games, and a group went to see one of the professional matches a couple of nights ago (at a cost of 50 euros per ticket—too rich for my blood!).

Jonathan Edwards's brother (Brandon) and his wife joined us here in the hotel this week and will be here until the first part of next week. They have a three-week-old baby named Charlotte who has been turning heads throughout the hotel. Our son Richard is no longer the youngest person here! Brandon and his wife are missionaries in Sicily, and they are here for a sort of vacation and also to get their daughter a U.S. passport. I had not seen Brandon for many years, so it has been a treat to talk to him. I discovered that he and I lived in the same city in China at different times, and that has given us a lot to talk about.

I have been busy in the afternoons. On Tuesday my family drove into Arezzo for some sightseeing, and we managed to see the cathedral and the church of San Francesco, which contains an important fresco cycle by Piero della Francesca telling the story of the Legend of the True Cross. Wednesday afternoon I went back into Arezzo with a couple of Faulkner students to see the Medici fortress and the remains of the Roman amphitheater, as well as Petrarch's house, which was inexplicably closed. On Thursday I drove my family up into the Casentino region north of Arezzo to see the birthplace of Michelangelo, which is in a little hill town called Caprese. The weather is changing here and getting quite cold, windy, and rainy. We were on the verge of getting uncomfortable on top of that hill.

Thursday was also Birthday #6 for our oldest son, Edward. Vickie made a big cookie for him with a candle that he blew out at supper last night. All the students sang to him, and he enjoyed it.

This evening we are having a "Harvest Party" here in the hotel, which I understand is supposed to be followed by an excursion to a cemetery to tell ghost stories. Students are dressing up in costumes; Kevin Cline and Elizabeth Nabors are going as me and Vickie. I'm sure that will be interesting.

Citta della Domenica

This past Sunday, as I noted earlier, was another free day for the students. Many were still traveling on their weekend trips which had begun Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. My family drove down to Perugia to visit Citta della Domenica, a combination zoo and amusement park, for the kids' benefit. It took some doing to find the place; our directions were unclear, and we had to stop to ask for help once or twice. We finally located it on top of a hill opposite from the main body of the city, and spent about four hours there. Edward and William both got to ride ponies and drive go-carts around a track, and there was a train to ride and a big slide to go down as well as lots of animals to see. It wasn't up to the standards of most theme parks in the states, but the price was much cheaper; we all got in for less than $50.

We got back to Citerna around 4:00, and I spent the rest of the afternoon preparing for the sermon I was to deliver at the worship service that evening. By 7:00, when the service began, I think everyone in our group had returned except for Dr. Gardner, who had flown to Philadelphia to attend a Monday board meeting for an energy company he works with. After the service we had our usual Sunday evening pizza and began to gear up for another week of nonstop classes.

Urbino

We deviated somewhat from our original schedule this weekend. We had planned to have a free day on Saturday, during which students would be free to travel somewhere within a reasonable distance, and then a group trip into Florence on Sunday. In the middle of the week the decision was made to cancel the group trip and give the students the entire weekend off, with a group worship service here at the hotel Sunday evening. As a result, a number of students left the hotel Friday evening, and more left Saturday morning for trips to Venice and other places in Italy. Others took day trips into Florence on the weekend.

My family took advantage of the free day Saturday to drive to Urbino, a hill town to the northeast of Citerna that played a significant role in the Renaissance. Urbino's ruler in the fifteenth century was Duke Federigo da Montefeltro, a soldier of fortune who managed to take over the city and legitimize his rule through military victories and subsequent patronage of the arts. Urbino is also the hometown of the painter Raphael. The place is not very accessible; we had to drive about 90 minutes on some very winding roads to get there. However, the drive was worth it. The town is very picturesque; the ducal palace (built by Federigo) dominates it, but there are numerous other sites of note.

For a mere six euros each, Vickie and I got discounted combination tickets that gave us admission into most of the town's significant sites, including the palace, which houses a museum with some important Renaissance works in it, including a couple of Raphaels and Piero della Francesca's Flagellation; Raphael's birthplace; two oratories with interesting interiors, including a mock grotto; and series of chapels under the cathedral. We spent about four or five hours in the town visiting these sites, with breaks for a picnic lunch at the fortress atop the hill and a cup of gelato at the end of our tour.

We made it back to Citerna around 5:00 and ate supper with the students who were here. Piera, the cook, informed us that Italy went off daylight savings time that evening, and that we all needed to set our clocks back an hour before going to bed. For most of us, that was an extra bonus to the free weekend: an extra hour of sleep in addition to two days off!

Four Days of Classes

From Tuesday through Friday of last week we were on a normal class schedule. Students are busy with semester projects in some classes and simply trying to stay on top of regular assignments in others. This has not prevented them from playing soccer regularly with or without Jonathan (who took a trip down to southern Italy this weekend to visit his brother, who has a new baby).

We had a special event on Wednesday afternoon when our group made a trip to Florence to visit Harding University's villa, which houses the Harding University in Florence (HUF) program. The villa is located on the outskirts of Scandicci, a Florence suburb. Because I spent two semesters at HUF—once as a faculty child in 1986, and again as an undergraduate in 1993—this was a homecoming of sorts for me. I had not visited the villa since 1998, and there have been several changes to the grounds since then. I had a reunion with Robby and Mona Shackelford, the onsite directors, and with Renata, the lady who used to do the laundry at the villa and who came out of retirement this year to help in the kitchen.

Our group had dinner in the villa with the HUF students, and afterwards the students loaded up the bus and two vans to go down to the Scandicci soccer field for a match against each other. After dropping them off, Robby took my family and a couple of ladies visiting from Searcy over to Piazzale Michelangelo, which offers a great view of the center of Florence. We got back to Scandicci to see the end of the soccer game (our group won 4-2), but the bus didn't get us back to Citerna until after midnight, so we were all exhausted the next day. However, I think most of the group thought the experience was worth it.

Free Travel #2 (Part 3)

To readers eager for group updates, I apologize for all the details about my family's travels, but members of my family stateside are clamoring for information, so please bear with me. After this post, I'll be back to the group.

Saturday morning, October 18, we checked out of our hostel in Padua, but before leaving town we walked over to the church of St. Anthony, which is the burial site of St. Anthony of Padua and one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in Christendom. Anthony was a 13^th-century Franciscan who is supposed to have been one of the most powerful preachers of all time. He was canonized soon after his death, and this church was begun immediately. It is quite large, so even though there was a service underway when we entered, we were fairly unobtrusive. We visited the tomb and the relics chamber before leaving the church, checking out Donatello's Gattamelata (the first full-sized bronze equestrian statue to be cast in a thousand years) in the piazza outside. Then we visited an open-air market to buy some gloves, and left town for the South Tyrol.

The South Tyrol (also called Alto-Adige) is the northeastern part of Italy. From the Middle Ages until 1919 it was Austrian territory, but Italy got it at the end of World War I. The population is still largely German-speaking. Our purpose in going was to visit Europe's largest alpine meadow, the Alpe di Siusi. We stayed in a small town called Castelrotto (Kastelruth), one of the most picturesque mountain towns I have ever seen. We slept in a bed-and-breakfast operated as an appendage to a family farm, and the farmer took the kids into the barn to see their cows (about 30). On our arrival Saturday afternoon we took a chair lift from Castelrotto up to a spot on the lower edge of Alpe di Siusi where there was a hikers' hut, a playground, and a half-dozen goats. We actually got to eat Wienerschnitzel in Italy, and the scenery was beautiful. After coming back down the chair lift, we did some grocery shopping, checked into our B&B on the edge of town, and then walked back into the town center to take a look at things. Most of the buildings are 19^th-century but look as though they are from an earlier period.

Sunday morning we went back into town to see the locals turn out for Mass in traditional clothing (a tip from our guidebook). The church in the town square was completely packed, all the proclamations of the death of religion in Europe notwithstanding. We stayed inside the church for the first few minutes of the service and then left for the cable car in the neighboring town that would take us up to the main part of Alpe di Siusi. The town of Compatsch at the meadow's head is at about 1500 meters elevation. From there we took a chair lift up to a plateau at about 2100 meters and hiked a loop trail for a couple of hours. We had one incredible vista after another, and even though lugging strollers over rocky parts of the trail was not fun, the experience was well worth the effort. In the late afternoon we rode the chair lift and cable car back down to our car and drove back to Castelrotto. We had a nice evening at the farm and were able to have a worship service for our family.

Monday morning we went into town one more time, primarily to check out a woodcarver's shop we had noticed Saturday and a museum dedicated to the town's claim to fame, a folk-music band called Kasteruth-Spatzer. Apparently these guys are the hottest thing since sliced bread in the German-speaking world, having put out best-selling albums for 25 years or more. One reason we took an interest in them is that their annual hometown festival/concert (which had occurred the week before our visit) takes place at the farm where we stayed, and we had seen lots of photographs of them already. Our hostess had told us at breakfast that this most recent festival had drawn 50,000 people over three days! After visiting the museum—yes, we bought some music—we got back in the car and spent about five hours driving back to Citerna.

Free Travel #2 (Part 2)

My family spent Friday, October 17, in Venice. Rather than attempting to drive from Padua, we planned on riding a commuter train that takes about 35 minutes to reach the island part of Venice. Thursday afternoon we learned that a train strike had been planned for Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., so we made sure we made it to the train station around 8:00 in order to get on a train that would reach Venice before the strike was scheduled to begin. Our plan worked without any hitches, and at 9:00 we were in the Venice train station. However, we learned when we got out to the Grand Canal that the strike included the vaporetto boats that function as buses, and service was irregular, with no boats going all the way to St. Mark's square.

So we decided to walk to St. Mark's. This turned out to be a mistake, because the kids (especially William) had their hearts set on riding a boat, so whenever we crossed a canal between the train station and St. Mark's, William almost threw a fit. We took our time getting to the piazza, not arriving until after 11:00. We waited in line to go into the church, and once we were inside we paid to go upstairs into the gallery and museum. The morning had been cloudy, but the sun came out while we were inside and lit up the mosaics brilliantly. After leaving the church we fed pigeons in the piazza and got some funny pictures. The kids thought that was the best thing ever.

Then we went into the Doge's Palace and spent more than an hour there. The kids weren't too impressed by most of the rooms, but they really enjoyed the armory, which was about what I had expected. We snacked in the café and then went back to the Rialto Bridge, which we had passed on the way to St. Mark's. There we waited in line for a vaporetto heading back for the train station so that the kids would get their boat experience. Fortunately, they enjoyed the ride immensely, despite its relative brevity of about 5-10 minutes. We disembarked at about 4:00 p.m., an hour before the train strike was scheduled to end, and we spent most of our waiting time in a cafeteria called Brek that was recommended by Rick Steves. Our return trip to Padua was uneventful, and we made it back to the hostel around 6:15, early enough so that we felt justified in going out to dinner at another pizzeria. We got back to the hostel around 8:30 and turned in to prepare for another day of travel on Saturday.