We took the students on a three-day excursion to Florence. I'm took fewer pictures this trip than previous years. Maybe I have the been there, done that attitude. Maybe I just figured there are much better pictures online that I can link to. I have a few of mine, but mostly links.

There has been a lot of controversy in higher education circles about study abroad lately. One issue has been "kickbacks" to schools from for-profit programs. That's not an issue with Ball State or AHA. The other controversy has been the "quantity versus quality" debate. Schools tout how many students they send overseas but not the quality of the experience. I need to do everything I can to get the word out about the outstanding quality of this AHA - Macerata program. Allow me an example. In summer 2005 I taught for 5 weeks with another consortium. We spent 25 days in Florence. The students then did not see and do all the Macerata students did in just three days. In addition, I picked up a brochure in the hotel for guided walking tours. One promoted a 3 hour tour of the "secrets" of Florence and included a visit to Michelangelo's David. The price was $63. A two hour tour of the Uffizi Gallery was priced the same. Our students did both. Forget the discussion about expense: the amount of teaching Fliberto did over three days was phenomenal. Indulge me while I go into detail about the schedule:

Wed., 5:30 a.m. - board the charter bus for Florence. After the initial excitement, most students slept.
We stopped around 8 a.m. for a coffee break. For the final hour as we approached Florence, Filiberto intermittently spoke on the mic about what we saw.
9:30: Visit San Mineato al Monte, an ancient church that sits above the main city. We then walked down to Piazzale Michelangelo, best known because of the view of Florence.
10:45: The bus drove us down to Hotel Unicorno, our home for the next couple of days.
11:15 - The students had free time. Kim and I took a few of them to the San Lorenzo market area, where we had had amazing sandwiches from a place in 2005. Unfortunately, Mr. Perini himself (whose picture appears in the front of the Williams-Sonoma Florence book) was on vacation, but we still got our wonderful sandwiches.
13:00 - One major improvement over 2002 is the rental of guide mic/headset system that allows all of us to hear Filiberto. We had them for the afternoon and it made it SO much better. Our tour of the main town began with the Baptistry. To show the exterior, doors and interior requires that I link to several sites. We left there and went just a few yards to visit the Cathedral itself, the subject of the documentary my class produced when we were in Florence in 2005. We walked around the interior and exterior, including Giotto's bell tower.
At 15:15, we walked to the Chiesa di Santa Croce (Holy Cross Church) which is a museum more than a church. In it are the tombs of many famous Italians including Michelangelo, Galileo and Machiavelli. The three sad figures you see at the foot of Mike's tomb are the arts (painting, sculpture and architecture) depressed at his passing. I took a picture inside the refectory. We made a stop for gelato - Filiberto claims Vivoli is the best. At 16:45 we walked to Orsanmichele, Piazza della Signoria and the Ponte Vecchio. We finished up at 17:45 so they could have a coupe of hours to shop before dinner.
I couldn't believe the coincidence. Our dinner (at 20:30) was at Tira Barala, the place where we ate for 25 straight nights in 2005. Nothing wrong with the place - we just got tired of it. Anyway, this meal was better than the economic menu they served us under the other program. Dinner ended around 10:30, putting an end to our 17 hour day. Of course, some of the students still went out afterward.

Thursday, Filiberto had wake up calls for all at 7:30 a.m. Breakfast was 8:15 - 9, an American-style breakfast complete with scrambled eggs, breakfast cereal and coffee that was a cross between Italian and American. The students were very excited.
At 9 we walked back to the Cathedral to walk up to the top of the dome. I'm including a picture to prove I did it, but the reason I'm in the shadow is because I was too afraid to go to the edge and lean on the railing. The walk up was quite a workout but once we got up there we had a lot of time to just walk around and admire the view. There were even a few benches.
At 10:15 it was off to the church of San Lorenzo (St. Laurence). I don't know how Wikipedia got interior shots - pictures are not allowed. At 11:15 it was off to Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, Piazza dell'Annunziata and the Ospedale degli Innocenti. At noon they got a short break. At 12:15, we were on to the Galleria dell'Accademia to see lots of things, but Michelangelo's David is the reason for the museum. No pictures are allowed in the museum, although hundreds of people each day (thousands?) take them. A Google image search will yield about 145K hits. I really have mixed feelings about this. The ban is ridiculous: are they afraid a photo will hurt the marble? No, clearly they want to sell books, prints, postcards, etc. But, it's the rule. If I want a picture of Dave, I can just go online and get one without surreptitiously taking one. We broke for lunch at 13:15. This would be a good time to mention we had 3 guests visiting from the Midwest Consortium: one from Concordia University Ann Arbor and two from Saginaw Valley State University. Those three, Filiberto, Kim and I went to a place for lunch Filiberto knew. The owner wasn't there, so a waitress called and Filiberto talked with him. A few minutes later we were getting a full meal at a reduced price. At 15:00 it was time to tour Santa Maria Novella. We finished at 16:45 when the students got a long break before dinner. At 20:00 we went to dinner. Another footnote: the hotel was going to make the arrangements for the second night's dinner. When Filiberto asked at the hotel on Wednesday, the desk staff acted as if they didn't know anything about what he was talking about. He walked over to the place and they were oblivious. He left, went to another person he knew, and arranged for Thursday's dinner, then went back and told the other restaurant we didn't need them to make room for us. It may not seem like much, but arranging a discount meal for a group of 30 usually requires quite a bit of arranging. He lost about an hour of time on Wednesday but everything turned out great. No one else could direct this program like he does.

Friday's wake up calls came at 7 a.m. because we had to have breakfast and our bags packed and in the lobby by 9:05. We walked around a little over an hour examining the architecture of significant buildings like Palazzo Strozzi, Piazza della Republica and Piazza della Signoria (there's a link above). At 10:35 we had our appointment to visit the Uffizi Gallery. I'm including this Wikipedia Link, but I can't believe they don't include Leonardo's Annunciation in the list of famous paintings. This tour gives some idea of how big the collection is. Click on a room or two (room 15 has the Annunciation I mentioned). Again, no pictures allowed.
The formal program ended at 13:15. Students had almost 3 hours before we got our bags and hopped a public bus for Macerata. Because so many students elected to stay behind and head elsewhere for the weekend, the charter was not economical. It wasn't bad - we just had to change buses once in Perugia.

Once again, another example of Filiberto's skills. He asked students on Monday to commit to coming home with us or not so he could reserve our seats. Well, some people changed their minds and we ended up with more wanting to come home than we reserved. As a mater of fact, there was really no room on the second bus for all of us. No matter - Filiberto talked with a friend, and all of us had seats. Filiberto had to sit in the "jump seat" for part of the trip, but he made it work for everyone.

We had a fabulous time. Now, let me tell you a few gripes. This is all said after telling you how wonderful everything was.

• A few of the students left the Uffizi early because they were catching trains to other points. One group left just as we were entering Room 15 (with The Annunciation). The painting must be valued at tens of millions of dollars. They never saw it, or masterpieces by Vasari, El Greco or Flemish masters.
• We almost left a bag at the hotel. One of the students believed she had arranged for another student to take it back while she traveled elsewhere, but that student was taking TWO other students' bags back. If it hadn't been for Kim we would have left it. This morning (Saturday) at 8:15, she buzzed at our door wanting to pick it up. I'm thinking I will be sure to call her at 8:15 on a Saturday morning if she thinks that time is OK to call on people.
• Our excursions are definitely long and involve lots of walking, but some of our students act as if they're dying. Filiberto is 52 (he probably didn't want me to say that) and he not only does all the walking, too, but he's the one doing all the teaching, talking almost the whole time and rarely sitting. Whenever we get to a location, some students look to find a place to sit as quickly as possible.
  

OK, I shouldn't end on a negative note. It was a fabulous three days. How about ending with an unrelated bit of fun? The night before leaving Macerata, there was a dance performance at the local theatre. Here's a portion I thought you might enjoy.