Abroadco offers several excursions to its students, to destinations around Tuscany and throughout Italy. During a typical semester, four excursions will be offered, including two overnight excursions. The cost of transportation, accommodations, admission fees, breakfast and guides is included.

Excursion itineraries are selected in the weeks prior to a program's start date, and are communicated to students as early as possible. The following is a list of excursions that have been offered in the past.

Siena and San Gimignano (one-day excursion)

Siena's Piazza del Campo's nine sections honor its medieval Council of Nine. Its fountains and slope both decorate the square and act as part of the city's water system.

Spring Semester 2006 Included Excursion

You might feel that the excursion to Siena starts as soon as you leave Florence, as the 50 kilometer ride to Siena is as striking as the landscapes favored by Renaissance painters. Its dramatic rolling hills, countless vineyards, castles, and towns along the way will the trip one to remember. Siena itself is a masterpiece that has drawn visitors since Estruscan times. Its Gothic cathedral is its primary draw, with its treasure trove of Gothic sculpture, Baroque design, and Renaissance painting. Piazza del Campo hosts the Palio each summer, which includes the famous horse races around the square.

A beautiful pedestrian village atop the area’s highest hill, San Gimignano evokes the Middle Ages like no other location in Tuscany. Its full name is San Gimignano delle Belle Torre, paying homage to its “Beautiful Towers”, of which 14 remain today. Centuries ago they numbered as high as 70 and represented the town’s status as a wealthy power center of medieval Europe. Much like Florence, San Gimignano is home to a wealth of art, especially 14th and 15th century masterpieces. The town is also renowned for its white wine, Vernaccia di San Gimignano.

Pisa and Lucca (one-day excursion)

Students pose in front of the Campanile on an excursion to Pisa.

Spring Semester 2006 Included Excursion

The birthplace of Galileo and Medici family, Pisa has more to offer than the leaning tower! The Piazza del Duomo, also called the “Campo dei Miracoli” (Field of Miracles). The famous tower and the imposing cathedral are located here. It is one of Italy’s most stunning squares, and its lush green grass provides an appropriate setting for the other historic buildings.

Lucca is a charming city, renowned for opera, loved for its olive oil, palace gardens, and Romanesque churches. Its historic center is entirely enveloped by enormous 16th century redbrick bastions. It retains most of its street plan that was laid out by the Romans. Among its few changes is its ancient amphitheater which was used as a foundation for homes during the Middle Ages. This is the birthplace of composers Boccherini and Giacomo Puccini, and Lucca frequently honors them with concerts in the 19th century Teatro del Giglio and the lavish villas north of town.

Arezzo and Cortona (two-day excursion)

Spring Semester 2006 Included Excursion

Discover the secrets of these two medieval cities, jewels of Tuscany, hilly towns with Estruscan walls, renowned for their beautiful cathedrals adorned with Fra Angelico’s frescoes.

Arezzo, located in southeastern Tuscany and surrounded by four valleys, was once home to Renaissance artists and scholars. More recently, it is famous as the hometown of Robert Benigni, director and star of Life is Beautiful, who shot many of the film’s scenes in the area. Its well-preserved historic district offers you beautiful examples of Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance art and architecture.

Cortona is among the finest of Tuscany’s many hilltop towns. Less well-known than other destinations, it is home to Etruscan tombs, medieval alleys, Renaissance artwork, sweeping panoramas, and a charming small-town feel. It is considered to have been settled even before the Estruscans, and its tombs attest to its important status during those times. During its history, Cortona was home to, among others, Fra Angelico, Luca Signorelli, Pietro da Cortona, and Gino Severini.

Rome (two-day excursion)

Spring Semester 2006 Included Excursion

Italy’s capital, the Eternal City, is filled with history, art, architecture, and so much more. Below are descriptions of some of the places you may visit during your excursion to Rome.

Roman Forum
The Roman Forum is located in a valley that is between the Palatine hill and the Capitoline hill. It originally was a marsh, but the Romans drained the area and turned it into a center of political and social activity. The Forum was the marketplace of Rome and also the business district and civic center. It was expanded to include temples, a senate house and law courts. When the Roman Empire fell, the Forum became forgotten, buried and was used as a cattle pasture during the Middle Ages.

Much of the forum has been destroyed. Columns and stone blocks are all that remain of some temples. The arch of Titus and the arch of Septimius Severus still stand and are in good shape. Like many other ancient Roman buildings, stone blocks have been removed from the Forum and used to build nearby churches and palaces.

Saint Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museums
St. Peter's square, one of the most beautiful and famous in the world, is surrounded by Bernini's imposing colonnade that seems to "embrace" it with its 284 columns (1656-67).
In the center stands a 26-meter tall Egyptian obelisk from Heliopolis; at its sides two beautiful fountains; everything is grandiose and at the same time extremely harmonious. In the background, the massive structure of the Basilica with its gigantic façade. From the year 1452 many architects among the most illustrious of their times contributed to make the new temple of Christianity the most majestic in the world: Rossellini, Bramante, Giuliano da Sangallo, Raphael, Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Michelangelo, Pirro Ligorio, Vignola, Della Porta, D. Fontana and Maderno.

The Vatican Museum’s astonishingly rich collections - a veritable citadel of museums - offer the opportunity to follow every itinerary of art and history. Of the many galleries and museums within the Vatican, the most famous is the Sistine Chapel with its stunning frescoed ceiling painted by Michelangelo.

The Colosseum
The Colosseum in its present shell-like state remains Rome’s greatest architectural legacy. The elliptical bowl seating 50,000 debuted in A.D. 80 with bloody combat between gladiators and wild beasts. Many historians now doubt legends of Christians being fed to the lions at the Colosseum.

The Pantheon
Built in 27 B.C. and rebuilt in second century A.D, the Pantheon (All the Gods) is the lone ancient Roman building remaining intact. This perfect square resting in a cylinder measuring 142 feet wide and 142 feet high ranks among the world’s architectural wonders thanks to spatial concept. Michelangelo studied its once-gilded dome before designing the cupola of St. Peter's. Walls are 25 feet thick, and bronze doors weigh 20 tons each. More than a century ago, Raphael's tomb was discovered here. Buried nearby are Vittorio Emanuele II, king of Italy, and his successor, Umberto I.

Trevi Fountain
Trevi Fountain, on a piazza of Via del Tritone, is a striking oasis of rest featuring mythical sea creatures and cascading waters. As if not sufficiently immortal on its own, films like Three Coins in a Fountain and Fellini’s La Dolce Vita have made it one of the world’s best known wishing wells. Legend dictates that you can ensure return to Rome by tossing a coin into the fountain, one of the most trafficked sites in the city.

Castel Sant’Angelo
Built, as was the Elian bridge in front, by the Emperor Hadrian (117-138) as a Mausoleum for himself and his successors, it was completed by Antoninus Pius in 139. In 271, the Emperor Aurelian incorporated the pile into the defence system he designed: it lost its function as a tomb to become a fortress. In 1277 it was occupied by Nicholas II who connected it to the Vatican by the famous corridor, a safety passage which runs along the top of the encircling wall of the Vatican. Hencefort, it remained under the control of the Popes who used it as a fortress, to impress, but also as a prison and a place for torture.