Art and Farm-to-Table Cuisine in Italy: Tuscany and Rome

October 20-28, 2014

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Join us for an insider’s engagement with two of Italy’s finest achievements: its art and its farm-to-table cuisine. On this nine-day journey to Tuscany and Rome, take in iconic and lesser-known masterpieces at some of the world’s greatest museums, churches, and galleries with the insights of local artists and art historians, explore evocative piazzas and hilltop villages, and enjoy Italy’s delicious cuisine, olive oils, and wines at an historic sustainable-agriculture estate in Tuscany.

The first part of our program is a five-night sojourn at a distinctive estate and registered historical site set amongst the vineyards and olive groves of rural Tuscany. The estate, dating to the 13th century, encompasses a medieval castello, a wildlife refuge, and a certified organic farm and forest. It is a welcoming home away from home, and provides a perfect base for day trips into Florence –- where we’ll encounter masterpieces by artists including Michelangelo, Botticelli, Fra Angelico, Ghirlandaio, Donatello, and many others –- and the medieval time capsule of Siena. When not engaging with some of the western world’s greatest art, we’ll explore Tuscany’s ruined monasteries and hilltop villages, and spend time at the estate taking a traditional Tuscan cooking class, touring the estate’s organic gardens, walking or sketching evocative rural landscapes, enjoying fresh farm-to-table cuisine, and sampling local olive oils and wines.

Our Italian journey continues in timeless Rome, where we’ll have a chance to immerse ourselves in art and history at the ancient ruins of the Roman empire, St. Peter’s Cathedral, the Vatican museums, the Galleria Borghese, and other key sites where local experts will help us develop an appreciation for the forces and personalities that brought the city’s luminous artworks and stunning archaeological treasures to light. In Rome we’ll continue our enjoyment of Italian cuisine, with an emphasis on discovering where locals eat, as opposed to crowded tourist restaurants.

We’ve timed this trip to take advantage of a quieter tourist season in Italy, when the crowds are thinner and it’s easier to appreciate the country’s world-renowned masterpieces at an unhurried, meditative pace. Our group will be led by author and travel guide Tim Weed and artist Julia Jensen. Participants should be in good health and capable of extensive walking. We suggest, but do not require, that everyone bring a writing journal and/or a sketchbook to enhance the experience.

PROGRAM DETAILS

Dates: October 20-28, 2014

Lodgings: We stay in the restored medieval castello of a rural Tuscan estate and in a carefully selected Roman boutique hotel. Lodgings are chosen for their comfort, character, friendliness, and location, with an emphasis on historical interest and authenticity as opposed to the more generic five-star luxury of the international hotel chains.

Price per person: $5,390 (single supplement $600), includes transfer from your arrival airport to our lodgings in Tuscany, all ground transportation during the program, local experts, museum entries, a day-long cooking class, olive oil and wine tastings, all meals except for one independent dinner in Rome, and a tax-deductible donation to the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center. Note that in order to accommodate your independent travel plans before and/or after the program, airfare to and from Italy is not included.

Getting There: In order to make the group rendezvous in Tuscany on October 20, participants will need to fly from their US departure airport to either Rome, Pisa, or Florence on or before the evening of October 19. The program concludes in Rome on the morning of October 28; participants may book airfare for that morning or afternoon, or they may elect to stay on for additional independent travel in Italy.

To Register: Non-refundable deposit of $800 due by July 25, 2014. Release form and full balance due by August 15, 2014. Space is limited to preserve the intimacy and flexibility of the experience, and we encourage you to reserve your place early.

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Group Leader Tim Weed is a Vermont-based author and educator who has spent his entire career developing and leading educational travel programs abroad. He graduated from Middlebury College and holds master’s degrees from the University of California, San Diego, and the Warren Wilson College MFA for Writers program. As a founding director of National Geographic Student Expeditions, Tim played a key role in developing new photography, archaeology, and wildlife conservation programs in Iceland, Peru, Ecuador & the Galápagos, Spain, the Yucatán Peninsula, Alaska, and Yellowstone and Grand Canyon National Parks. From 1999 to 2004, he headed up a series of pioneering educational programs for American students in Cuba, including a four-week mobile writing workshop that traversed the island from Santiago to Havana. Since then, Tim has led numerous cultural, arts, and choral music programs in Cuba for National Geographic Expeditions, the Grand Circle Foundation, and Educational Travel Associates. Tim’s articles on travel and the outdoors have appeared in many national magazines, and his essay, “Embargoed Brothers: An American in Off-Limits Cuba,” won a 2012 Best Travel Writing Award. He teaches an honors global engagement course on the U.S.-Cuba relationship at Keene State College, and is a lecturer in Western Connecticut State University’s MFA in Creative and Professional Writing program. Tim is fluent in Spanish and conversant in Italian and Portuguese.

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