Fine (The End)

Today, a 9:30 am bus departure allowed for a little sleeping in - which will come in useful for tomorrow.  However, today finally brought us to the Vatican museum and St. Peter's.  Both bus groups had much to see and hear over the course of the 3 1/2 hour tour - but again, the students were awestruck by the history and greatness of the collection.  A particular highlight was hearing a brass quintet perform/rehearse the Hallelujah Chorus from the Messiah while we were in St. Peter's.

After the Vatican, students had time to grab lunch and search for that last souvenir near the hotel in some nice shopping areas.  At 6:15, we got all dressed up and boarded the buses to a wonderful restaurant for our final meal together in Rome. This meal was particularly delicious and we were treated to a duo of musicians for some great, spirited dinner music - flute and guitar with both musicians singing as well. The musicians performed our Italian pieces - Funiculi, Funicula, Tarantella, and Nessun Dorma along with others.

We also continued our tradition of gift giving and poem reading.  Students shared some special moments in verse with their new and old friends, capping off a really great trip.

Since,we have a 5 am wake up call in the morning, I'm signing off for now.  There should be some new pictures on the snapfish account.  The next you'll hear from us, we'll be home safe and sound.

Ciao Italia!

Entrance to the Vatican Museum

Inside the courtyard in the Vatican Museum - note the famous Roman pine cone in the back

Posing :-)

A beautiful walk

The High Altar inside St. Peter's Basilica

St. Peter's Basilica

Some final souvenir shopping

Dressed up for dinner

Our evening's entertainment

Reading of the poems

Sharing a moment

An attentive group

The chaperones with our guides

And today...Rome!

We said goodbye to Orvieto this morning at 8 - with check outs and breakfasts in our neat little hotels.  A 2 hour bus ride saw us pulling into Rome at about 10:30 or so.  We passed through the area of the 1960 Olympics as we made our way through the Trastavere region of the city (past one of our tour host's home!) and  to the Victor Emanuel monument.

We hit the ground running with new guides who lead us through the area of the Forum and into the Colosseum! As one student put it today, "THIS is why I came to Italy!"  Everyone seemed very appropriately awed by the sense of history and magnitude of this structure.  An added bonus to being here during Holy Week is seeing one of the Seven Stations of the Cross where the Pope will observe Good Friday.

We then checked into our new digs and went foraging for a quick lunch.  At 3 we departed to our final performance at the Piazza Minerva in front of the Basilica Santa Maria sopra Minerva. We arrived with plenty of time before our 4:30 start time, so the students got to walk basically around the corner to the Pantheon - the most well-preserved (almost 90% of it is still original from ancient Roman times) Roman temple in the world - and now a church.  At about 4:10, some of the passersby started chanting "U.S.A" to encourage us to start playing.  As it would happen, this was a group of tourists from Spain who heard us in Zaragoza 2 years ago; they remembered us as a good band and wanted to hang around for our performance!

At 4:30, we kicked off the cadence and marched to our concert positions.  The band performed well to a very receptive audience - once again moving several listeners to tears with Nessun Dorma and earning a "Bravi!" from a gentleman who seemed to know what he was listening for.  :-)  Many audience members took time to find a chaperone and the directors to express their appreciation of the performance.  In fact, the Rector of the Basilica taped the performance, gave us a copy, and while touring the basilica, waved me over to express his appreciation for the performance.  He also wanted to make sure we were happy with having performed there!

Following the performance we bused back to the hotel with enough time to change and walk a few blocks to "The White Chicken" for a meal of pasta, kabobs, and another delicious dessert!  An evening walk by the entire group to the famous Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps took us right to an 11 pm room check.

Tomorrow, the chance to sleep in just a little with an 8 am wake up call, the Vatican Museum, St. Peter's Basilica, some free time for some last minute shopping/touring, and our (hard to believe!) farewell dinner.

Here are a few picture highlights -

Breakfast in Orvieto

Taking the tour in Rome!

Ruins of The Forum

Inside the Colosseum

Green Bus at Gladiator/Lion level!

After the tour

The Pantheon

Lakers inside the Pantheon

Another group photo in front of the Basilica Santa Maria sopra Minerva

Concentrating hard...  ;-)  and yes - the round building ahead is the back of the Pantheon!

The band in front of the elephant obilisk in Piazza Minerva

Doing what we do

Inside of the Basilica Santa Maria sopra Minerva

(unassuming from the outside - very grand inside!)

Dinner!

Lakers at the Trevi Fountain

We might get a few more pictures up to Snapfish in the morning (while you're sleeping!) - but, for sure - we have a ton to load when we get home!

Ciao, ciao!

Off to Orvieto

Today was a looooong travel day - 8 am departure, 10 am potty/espresso stop, 12:30 lunch stop 2:45 arrival in Orvieto! However, the students have fallen in love with another city in Italy.  Orvieto is a hill town - strategically placed on top of a plateau.  We parked the big buses below and hiked it up the broken(!) escalators to our 2 quaint hotels where the luggage was portered later. Students had a chance to explore the scenic, historic village, eat some gelato, and find the famous cathedral before we met for our 6 pm performance.

We took a group photo prior to the performance on the steps of the cathedral and then began our performance  in the Piazza Duomo (Cathedral Square).  We then reformed, marched 100 yards into an narrow street, stopped again to perform and continued to meet the local marching band from Orvieto where we alternated songs.  The performance finished with both bands playing the Italian national anthem together -  a real sign of how music can bring worlds together.

Following the performance, we changed, and met up for a short walk to the only restaurant in town large enough to hold us all!  After a delightful dinner (and a third rendition of happy birthday this week!), students had a chance to burn off some energy in a nearby piazza with some sprint races, dance offs(!) and some light frisbee work.

Here's a taste of our day - with many, many more to follow!

Espresso break on the road (even though I'm pretty sure this was actually hot chocolate!)

Off the buses ready to climb to Orvieto (in the background)

Climbing up

Chatting up the nuns from Louisiana!  :-)

The Cathedral in Orvieto

View from the city of Orvieto looking out over the countryside

Another angle

Group picture in front of the cathedral

Us still in front of the cathedral - a perspective of the size of the cathedral!

Marched across the piazza to perform in front of the Orvieto City Museum

Re-grouping for a march down the streets of Orvieto

A stop along the way

The local band from Orvieto waiting for us in the next square

Meeting and chatting up the details

A few of us get a quick picture together

Lined up for the joint performance

Tomorrow - Rome!  We drive straight to the Coliseum and a tour of Imperial Rome, lunch, check-in, change and perform one more time in the late afternoon at the Piazza Minerva - not far from the Pantheon.

Buona notte!

Palm Sunday or April Fool?

Greetings once again as we finish our final day in Sorrento.  We began the day with a scenic 10 km drive to Positano.  Along the way we were treated to hairpin turns and gasp producing drop-offs, exchanging the coastline of the Bay of Naples for the Bay of Salerno. Once at the top of Positano, we walked down many, many, many steps as our buses were too large to manuever in the town.  We dispersed from the main square to shops for clothing or baked goods or down to the beach.  Prior Lake students definitely seem to be doing their part to help the Italian economy!

On meeting up once again, we were surprised to find ourselves in the middle of a Palm Sunday procession with olive branches decorated with mozarrella balls in wax, candy, or any number of things meaningful to those processing as is the custom of the church in Positano.  The congregation met at the main square and lined the narrow pathway to the church with their branches as the procession of the altar boys and priest shared incense and holy water while the choir sang.  Though it caused a disruption in our meeting plans, it was a neat way to experience Positano even more completely.

We then hiked up an inclined path to the buses about a mile and a half - again enjoying the scenic views along the way.  On arrival at the buses, we continued to Amalfi after a brief visit at a ceramic shop for a toilet break!  (and...of course...some ceramic purchases!)  In Amalfi, we enjoyed lunch (many along the beach side) some exploring, and a view of the local beautiful church in the town's main square.

It was a pretty significant ride back to Sorrento (about an hour and a half).  The evening's activities included packing, dinner, some final views and exploring of Sorrento, and some general fellowship-ing.

The key system led one room of boys to believe another group had somehow stolen their room key, leading us all to believe an April Fool's prank was at work.  A thorough search of the room by the "chaperone mom's" lead to the missing key's discovery - right where they left it, though under the bed blanket.  (no surprise to any mom's following the blog, I'm sure!)  :-)

Tonight, instead of pictures, you will be able to use the Snapfish account (password and login in an earlier post - from March 28) to look at about 500 pictures already from the first few days of the trip.  Enjoy, and we'll catch you from Orvieto tomorrow!

Ciao!

PLHS School Song in Sorrento!

...with a view of all the kids! Enjoy!