I know it has been awhile – we spent three glorious pink-tinged days in Venice, then to Firenze again, then Siena, and Lucca yesterday – and one more trip to Firenze this week before leaving for Rome on Friday. This time next week I will be in Athens and that much closer to my Greek Read more >>

We finished La Vita Nuova last night after dinner – I skipped Thursday’s reading because I noticed I was getting a little melancholy after the nightly Dante. The unrequited love, the death of Beatrice – something about it was too much for me. I kept wanting to ask useless questions, and I had the most Read more >>

The night of my arrival, we sat down to dinner at eight o’clock. The teachers each introduced themselves and gave us a brief description of the following day’s activities – the market in Pistoia in the morning, then classes in the afternoon followed by an art history lecture and slideshow, then dinner and a reading Read more >>

So the semester begins. I arrived in Pisa on Friday afternoon from London, to a landscape that was rather familiar and sepia-toned – the area near Pisa airport looks very much like Southern California. I took the train to Pistoia and left the station to find the cabs, where I proceeded to raise an eyebrow Read more >>