Nick Christians and Barb Osborn lead twenty-two students to Italy May 9-23, 2010.  The trip included sites in Rome, Bari, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Naples, and Palermo.  The students walked through the Coliseum, the Great Circus, Palatine Hill, and threw coins in the Trevi Fountain while in Rome.  A highlight of the trip was a walk to the top of St. Peter’s Basilica.  320 steps to the top of the dome, and another approximately 200 winding, small, and steep steps to the top of the cupola.  At the top was a beautiful view of all of Rome and Vatican City.  A trip down the Apian Way to the Catacombs of St. Domitilla was the next stop for the group.  The students enjoyed their first taste of gelato in Rome and well as a walk through the Pantheon.

  The University of Bari was the next stop on the itinerary. Dr. Christians gave a talk to the agriculture students in Bari and then we were off to tour Flor Pagano, a 30,000 sq m greenhouse operation.  The students enjoyed an authentic Italian meal at the Villa Cappelli located in the town of Terlizzi, northwest of Bari in the region of Puglia.  The land at the villa, filled with fossils from 10 million years ago, is covered by ancient olive groves, vineyards and fruit trees.  We toured Bari visiting the St. Nicholas Basilica, a view of the Mediterranean Sea, and viewed some olive trees that were over 1000 years old.  A stop at the San Domenico Golf course and Cantina del Locorotondo, a wine cooperative of 700 producers, were interesting points of interest for the students.  We toured a little village called Alberobello and ate at a wonderful restaurant in Polignano.

Pompeii was the next stop for the group.  After settling in the bed and breakfast accommodations, the group set out for Naples to visit the Archeological Museum and have some free time to enjoy the sites.  On the way back to Pompeii, the group took a stop at Herculaneum to see the devastation from the Mt. Vesuvius.  The ancient city of Pompeii that was also covered over by the eruption of M. Vesuvius on August 26, 79 AD was the attraction of the next day.  For more than 1500 years it had vanished and slowly as each year goes by, more and more of the ancient city in recovered.

A drive down the Amalfi coast with a stop at Positano and also Amalfi was determined to be a little piece of paradise that no one else on the trip had ever experienced.  The blue-green water glistening straight down the cliffs was a beautiful site.  Back in Naples the group had a great tour of the University di Naples Orto Botanico.  The group then boarded a boat on their way to Palermo in Sicily.  After making their to the Casa Marconi motel and getting settled in, the group toured the Orto Botanico, a branch of the Univeristy degli Studi di Palermo.  The University of Palermo had a series of lectures about the agriculture, culture and area of Sicily for the group.  It was most interesting and even more intriguing was the espresso/café break with traditional Sicilian pastries.  Also on the list was a visit to the university’s vineyards and enology program.  The college actually has a working winery that they not only do research in, but also test the wines of producers all over the country.  Next on the stop was the Pellegrino Carlo winery that is a huge producer of Marsala wine.  The University of Palermo arranged for two meals on a dinner boat owned by one of the professors.  Both were very traditional Sicilian meals.  The students tasted octopus, swordfish, sardines, anchovies, smoked herring, and squid to name a few.  Wonderful breads, olives, and a traditional Cassata Cake from Sicily.  The rest of the time in Palermo was spent on Modello beach, shopping, and seeing such sites at the King’s Capuchins’ Catacombs corpses of Palermo, some trips back to Otho Botanico, and just some time to eat some more gelato and relax after a really hectic schedule.  

The trip ended with a flight back to Rome, and then the trip back to Iowa.  Ask the students on the trip how many flavors there are of gelato, or how many different kinds of pizza and pasta they tried, or how many miles they walked each day.  It was a trip of a lifetime.   Stay tuned for more international travel from the Department of Horticulture.  Hort 511; spring break to Costa Rica will be in Spring semester, 2011 and a trip to Ireland and the Ukraine in May, 2011 is in the works.


Barb Osborn
Program Coordinator
Department of Horticulture