Final Night at the Villa

After two weeks of exploring Florence and traveling from Rome to Venice to the Mediterranean Sea and cities throughout Tuscany, tonight students are celebrating their adventures and saying their goodbyes.  After a cheese tasting and presentation from the Food and Culture class and gallery openings…

Italian Food and Culture Cooks a Feast

Having spent the last two weeks discovering that there is more to Italian cuisine than pizza and pasta with a red sauce, on Thursday night students of the Food and Culture class put their new found knowledge of Italian cuisine to the test and cooked…

Fashion in Florence: Ferragamo, Gucci, and a taste of Cavalli

Today fashion focused on two Florentine fashion houses–Ferragamo and Gucci–both of which have museums in Florence. We started our day at the Ferragamo Museum at Palazzo Spini Feroni. Immediately dazzled by the shoes decorating the walls of the entryway from floor to ceiling, we first…

Art in Tuscany (Thinking and Painting)

We are sad to be wrapping up our Art and Art History class here in Florence, but we are honored that the villa has asked to scan our artwork and display it on the walls of future guests! Our last group excursion day was spent…

Throwback Friday with Art in Tuscany

This blog post from the beginning of the trip somehow got lost in the blogosphere.  What was meant to be an introductory news flash now feels more like nostalgia. There’s too much art to see and not enough time to see it here in Florence! Our…

More Recent History for the History of Italy

Some of the most important battles in the final year of the second world war took place within a hundred miles of Florence and this week the history seminar set out to get a first hand feel for those battles.  First, we visited the Memorial Museum…

Travel Photo with Colleen …..take two!

We were very fortunate to get to experience the Venice Biennale on our trip to Venice! Described as the “Olympics of Art’ our class viewed contemporary art at the American Pavilion, as well as video installations, and the photographic work of Walker Evans and Andreas…