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Imagine riding a train with glass walls up the steep hillside near Italy‚s Lake Como. It‚s called a funicular, and it was euphoria. Snow-capped blue mountains, marble churches, and the glittering lake made a stunning picture. We stepped off the funicular onto an old cobblestone sidewalk at the top of the cliff at the grand Hotel Milano.
I was in Italy with 40 other participants on a tour sponsored by Maharishi University of Management's Rotating University, which has also hosted trips to Switzerland and India. These courses are designed so that participants become familiar with the world's diverse cultures and feel at home in any country.
On our month-long trip, Lake Como was our home base, with several weekend and day trips to other famous sights and cities, including five days in Florence. We discovered the roots of various aspects of American culture in Italy's religion, art, food, and passion.
Each of us had rooms with wrought-iron balconies and romantic floor-length floral curtains hanging from 15-foot ceilings. Did anyone not have a good view? No! We either looked out on Lake Como, other small lakes, the Italian Alps, or the small village of Brunate.
We were in heaven as far as we could see, in a cool, mountain-air- filled paradise where we could laugh, take walks, and be inspired by the invisible romantic muses we imagined. We wrote poetry and sketched Lake Como's gardens and churches on our magnificent boat rides.
Regina Orange, one of the students on the tour, says, "Italy was a feast for my senses! The food was sublime, the desserts tantalizing, the scenery awe inspiring, and the historical monuments enriching. I love religious monuments, and experiencing the Vatican City was one of the holiest times of my life."
This was my second trip to Italy but one of my best experiences traveling ever. The tours were planned so that we had the option to go out and see things of interest that our professors from Maharishi University of Management had already researched. We took a boat ride to Belagio, where we saw the famous gardens and castles, and walked up stairs that were lined with shops and restaurants in the small-village atmosphere. We studied Italian with our hotel director daily and went on long walks along the winding roads around the lake. On Lake Como we saw Versace's home and his fashion museum, the site where A Month on the Lake was filmed, and many other famous villas.
The group traveled throughout many of the country's famous cities Florence, Milan, Venice, Rome as well as one day in San Moritz, Switzerland.
In Florence we saw Michelangelo's David, the angelic Sandro Botticelli's Venus Landing on the Shore, the Boboli gardens with its many cats and views of the Florentine countryside's rolling hills, and the famous shop-filled bridge, Ponte Vecchio. In Milan, we saw Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper. Etched in our minds' eye are many celestial visions produced in stone or paint so lifelike that we think we see what those artists saw.
Brynne Sissom says her favorite part of the trip was Florence, "because the history was layers deep and I could imagine 16th-century people bustling up and down the streets. I also did a 15-mile biking tour with several friends. It remains one of my favorite memories because I did something I didn‚t think I could do." They rode up into the grapevine-filled country side and sampled specimens of olive oil.
In Rome we walked the old part of the city over a three-day weekend. We investigated the Roman ruins and the Colosseum, explored St. Peter's Square, witnessed the Pope canonize Saint Theresa of Baptista, visited the Sistine Chapel, and saw many of Michelangelo's works.
Some students were there to study Sanskrit, and recited the Vedas daily. Others were there to write poetry or sketch. Whichever of the three classes that the participants chose, these areas of knowledge seemed to overlap and filter to the others in a integrated way.
Absorbing the different characteristics of another culture is one of the greatest benefits of traveling, the students felt. "We all gained insights about the Italian approach to life, love, food, and fashion that we are applying in our lives," says Regina Orange. "I loved speaking in Italian with my friends who went on the trip to Italy. We started out as perfect strangers and now we are close friends."
An education abroad has got to be one of the richest opportunities for every college student, or student of life. This June, the Maharishi Rotating University is sponsoring another trip to France. Diane Frank, professor of Creative Writing and author of three poetry books, says, "In Italy we were all deliciously happy and everyone wrote inspiring poems from their travel and creativity. We will use France and the things we see there as inspiration for poetry and prose. We will go to incredible magical places, sit there, and write."
In addition to the creative writing class, participants can choose from an Art and Nature class offered by Dale Divoky, or French II with French native Olivier Ferré, Director of Continuing Education. This upcoming trip to France is scheduled to include four days in Paris at the Hotel Le Printemps in a lively district close to museums and monuments, and three weeks in Provence at a luxury hotel which serves mostly organic cuisine.
Says Mr. Ferre, "We will start our course by enjoying the cultural splendors of Paris for four days, with a possible trip to a nearby city famous for its cultural treasures, like Chartres, Versailles, or Giverny. Then we will go to a small village in Provence, a place of breathtaking beauty in the south of France, surrounded by an overwhelmingly rich flora of natural plants. "From there," he continues, "we will enjoy several trips to discover the cultural diversity of Provence, whose brilliance of light has always attracted artists and painters like Corot, Renoir, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, and Picasso."
To find out more about the upcoming trip to France, scheduled for June 4-29, 1999, contact Olivier Ferré at Continuing Education, (515) 472-1135.
