T O D A Y - Berwick Academy

Upper School Art Trip to
Italy
by Raegan Russell
Over March break ten students traveled to
Italy with me and Ms. Wildnauer for nine days of
art, architecture, and family-style living in the hills of
Tuscany. This trip creates an immersion in art and
culture, where students live in a beautifully restored
family villa as a home base for day trips to towns like
Cortona, Arezzo, Montepulciano, Siena and Florence.
Our stay at La Selva, the villa which translates literally to
The Woods, offered our students a beautiful landscape,
hiking trails, and a creatively inspiring home base from
which to work and travel. In our travels, we saw
great works of art in the Uffizi Gallery, L’Accademia,
and the Piero della Francesco fresco cycle in Arezzo,
as well as enjoying the great architecture of Siena’s
Piazza Campo, Duomo and of course the Duomo in
Florence. A literal highpoint of the trip was climbing
Brunelleschi’s dome and being met by a brief snow
squall as we enjoyed the panoramic view of the city.
Making this trip in March allowed students to see a
different view of Italy than otherwise seen by most
tourists. On one day our students gathered recently
pruned olive boughs and made wreaths for us all to
wear (when in Tuscany, do as the Tuscans!) and then
on the next day saw the rare sight of the olive branches
covered with fresh snow. In addition to seeing great art,
students had some studio time in the villa to work in
their journals with Florentine paper we had bought and
some that they had learned how to marble themselves
in an impromptu workshop at Il Papiro in Florence. In
the villa, we also had the opportunity to watch Maria,
our wonderful guest chef, rolling out and making fresh
Parpadelle pasta as she prepared one of two traditional
Tuscan dinners for our group at home. Our trip to
Italy was full of Etruscan and Renaissance art and
architecture, of great natural beauty and of enjoying
good times and great local dishes such as pasta, truffles,
gelato and Cingiale (Wild Boar!) together. We also
had the opportunity to watch Maria, our wonderful
guest chef, rolling out and making fresh Parpadelle
pasta as she prepared one of two traditional Tuscan
dinners for our group at home. These were among the
many delicious meals we had in our travels when the
students tried not only foods that were new to them,
but also foods they had never heard of. This attitude of
curiosity and excitement at the dinner table was pretty
much the attitude towards all the students did in their
time in Italy.
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