Official

It is official.

Matt and I are going to Italy this summer. We will be in Italy the entire month of June (and for my birthday on July 1) studying with Tulane Law's Cultural Property program. I'm absolutely excited about it. The two classes we are taking are (1) International Legal Framework for the Protection of Art and Cultural Property and (2) The Black Markets in Stolen and Looted Art and Antiquities. The first is basically a general cultural property law/international law seminar. The second is a look at the international criminal law systems and their attempt to monitor and curb black art markets. Sounds really freakin cool.

We bought our plane tickets and reserved the apartment we will be staying in while in Siena last night. Our itinerary includes a week-ish in Cinqueterre (June 1-6), a long time in Siena (7-28) and my birthday in Venice (June 29-July 2).

Cinque terre includes five little towns on the western coast of Italy, about a 2ish hour train ride from Siena. For some great photographs of the area, check this out. We intend to stay three nights, probably one in Riomaggiore, one in Vernazza and another in Monterosso. You can hike between the towns or take the inexpensive train/bus. I would love to go hiking, snorkeling and laying out at the beach and just generally enjoying a bit of vacation time before school starts. This area is the birthplace of foccacia bread and pesto (two of my very favorites), so I will be in for a treat.

Siena is an ancient little part of central Italy, about 1.5 hrs from Florence. We are staying in a quaint little apartment about 3 minutes from the school. The town itself is restricted to car access and is quite hilly from what I have heard, so I will definitely have to frequent the gym to get my calves in shape before arriving! Siena is nestled in the heart of the Tuscany region and is surrounded by the Chianti wine country. For great pictures of Siena, look here.

Finally, we will end our trip with an excursion to Venice for my birthday. We are staying three nights at the Hotel American, with a canal view room. I haven't even begun to think about what we will do in Venice while we are there...maybe go to a show, a museum...who knows? All I know is that I will be enjoying the gondola rides and having great local wine. I'm sure everyone has an image of Venice in their minds, but Flickr has great photos of it too, here.

Anyway, so that is the gist of it. I am so very excited about it and find it rather hard to focus on anything related to school this semester. Finding jobs for the later part of the summer and reading for class just seem so much less interesting now that I have Italy on the horizon.

Hopefully those who find themselves reading this will follow my blog as I continue to post while in Italy.

Ciao!