Twenty
three intrepid Latin students and three teachers traveled to Italy over
February vacation 2012 for a nine day opportunity to visit many of the
sites that they have studied in Latin class. The tour started in the Bay
of Naples area. Staying in Sorrento, a lovely seaside resort town on
the Amalfi coast, the students took day trips to explore the vast
archaeological site of Pompeii, three majestic Greek temples poised on a
cliff overlooking the sea in Paestum, and the National Archaeological
Museum in Naples. Because it was too icy to go up Mount Vesuvius, the
students took an impromptu tour of the underground caves in Naples, some
of which were included ancient gateways and buildings, some of which
were used as bomb shelters during the Second World War. For the current
and future AP students on the trip, there was a stop in Cumae to walk
through the mystical cave of the prophetess, Sibyl. The students rode
the scenic Amalfi coast, with stops in the cliffside towns of Positano
and Amalfi. On the last evening in Sorrento, the students attended a
pizza-making class, where each student got to make an authentic pizza
from scratch, put it in a wood-fired oven and then enjoy their pizza at a
long-tabled feast.
The
tour continued to Rome where the students visited the awe-inspiring
ruins of the Colosseum, the Arch of Titus, the Roman Forum and the
Column of Trajan. The students saw highlights of the Vatican Museum,
with ample time to marvel the work of so many master Renaissance
painters gracing the walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Then they
visited St. Peter’s Basilica. There was also a stop at the Galleria
Borghese to see Bernini’s famous statues based on the myths of Ovid: the
more advanced Latin students recognized the Ovid passage inscribed on
the side of the deeply moving statue of Daphne and Apollo. Outside of
the city, the students spent a half day exploring the ruins of the
ancient port city of Ostia and then another half day wandering the ruins
of Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli. The trip was closed with an afternoon
spent at Gladiator Training School, where the students learned to fight
with various types of gladiator weaponry.
The
trip was a tremendous success on many levels. Because Latin students
don’t get the opportunity to partake in pop culture the way modern
language students do (movies, books, newspaper, music, videos, etc), a
trip to Italy, where the ancient ruins often stand side by side with
modern buildings, brings the ancient to life in ways that a textbook
never could. The students made connections to material they are studying
in class, translated bits of Latin that they encountered in their
travels, and, of course, enjoyed copious quantities of modern Roman ice
cream, a.k.a. gelato. It is for all of the reasons listed above that
Latin students will continue to visit Italy every two or three years.