June 10-13th

On Wednesday we visited the towns of Assisi and Spoleto! They involved a lot of uphill walking but luckily most of the stairs featured lovely escalators so we didn't have to walk up the mountains. In Assisi, we visited the Basilica of St. Francis and the Basilica of St. Clara, both of which were absolutely stunning. Assisi also had stunning views over the countryside. The cathedral we visited in Spoleto was once again amazing and we got to walk across this bride near an ancient Roman aqueduct very high off of the ground. We also got our first gelato! We were all exhausted from walking around all day so we went to bed pretty much right after dinner.

On Thursday, we had our hand skills "test" which was to see how heavy our hands were when we cleaned marble with a scalpel. This was also to practice what we'll be doing in Cabras. The marble had multiple layers of paint and crust which came off in varying levels of difficulty. In the afternoon, we visited Rieti and another church which had painted walls to look like marble. There was actually a conservator in there working on cleaning one of the columns which was really cool. When we got back it was time for pasta making! We made everything from scratch starting with the pasta dough made with only eggs and flour. We kneaded, rolled, and cut the dough with the help of Laura, a friend of Roberto, who was teaching us and Maria, who I will stress again is an absolute kitchen goddess. We made sauce from scratch as well, using tomatoes, mushrooms, olives, garlic, and herbs which we chopped ourselves and cooked on the stove. The end result was so delicious. Right before dinner, we received great news that the Mont'e Prama project had received the People's Choice Award for Cultural Heritage, given by the European Union. The award was given to Roberto at an awards ceremony in Oslo, Norway which we watched on the projector. We were all so excited and happy - but this means we are also now working on an award winning project so we feel slightly more pressure.

Friday, we woke up really early to see the sunrise and left early to go to Rome. Half the group went to visit Peter Rockwell, a sculptor from the U.S. in his studio. We immediately went to work carving and chipping away at marble and limestone, trying to make designs. It was very hard, especially when we tried to carve the marble. It makes you really appreciate the old masters' work. We got to try an old drill technique with a pulley and also an air drill for faster carving. We had lunch at a cute cafe place and then did a tour in the afternoon where we saw the Roman Forum and several other forums and ruins, as well as another church. For dinner we went out to a stone-fired pizza restaurant where we each got our own personal pizza. Afterwards, we went out to explore the nightlife of Rome and found a cool market/shopping area along the Tiber River.

Saturday was all tours, in the morning led by Francesca and in the afternoon by Peter Rockwell. The tours were a lot of walking in the hot sun so they were very tiring but cool because Francesca and Peter always had interesting stories behind the sights, churches and pieces of art we saw. After dinner we went out to the Tiber River festival again where they had a bunch of shops and restaurants.