Arrival At Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy

I’ve made it! My home away from home – Castiglion Fiorentino. This is where I’ll be based for the school quarter. In real time I’ve been here about 1 month now, but I’m still catching up on blogs.


Our little home town is a small, medieval village built upon a hill. The town is located in the region of Tuscany, about 45 miles south of Florence and 105 miles north of Rome. The region of Tuscany is known for its picturesque landscape of rolling hills, medieval towns, vineyards and olive groves – and I’ve found all of these things to be accurate!

Here’s a picture of the view of our town from the valley below. The tower on the left is next to our school, and the tower on the right marks an ancient fortress and Etruscan ruins.


Here’s a little history lesson… Castiglion Fiorentino has been in existence as a city, and in approximately its current configuration, for about 2,500 years. There is even evidence that there were several settlements here much earlier, even as early as the Paleolithic era – approximately 30,000 ago. The city was originally developed by the Etruscans – the culture of people who pre-date the Romans. Unfortunately we don’t learn much, if anything, about the Etruscans in school in the U.S., but I’m learning now what an incredible society they were. The Etruscans controlled much of the area now known as Tuscany along with the farther western coast of Italy. Although no one really knows where the Etruscans originated, one of the leading thoughts is that they originated from the near east, likely from western Turkey. It’s interesting to me that this region was settled by people not originally from Italy. It wasn’t until about 300 BC, after about 400 years of Etruscan control and inhabitation, that the Romans began to take control of Italy – and quickly almost all of Europe. So, LOOOONNNGGG story too long – Etruscans originally settled our little town here.

I was so glad to be arriving at my new home base as I was exhausted from traveling. Yes, poor spoiled me, I know. BUT, it’s true! Traveling around like that had me beat! Even though I loved and saw many incredible things, I was excited for the school program to begin.

Jason, Merilee and I arrived at the little train station of our town early in the morning in order to get a jump on the day. We were excited to see our train station sign! That’s how they abbreviate “Castiglion Fiorentino.”


The weather at this point was very dry and very hot. It was in the mid 90’s when we first arrived. Did I mention that our town is up on a hill? Yes, a hill. A big one! And here we are, hot, sweaty and tiered, and it’s only 9am and we’re at the bottom of the hill. It’s about a 15 minute walk to the top. Uhg. Well, we bucked up and started climbing. It’s really a nice walk, except that it was 90 something degrees and we were each carrying two large suitcases plus Jason had his bike case too and we were all drenched in sweat!

Here in Castiglion Fiorentino several people drive a funny little 3-wheeled vehicle called an Ape (pronounced a-pay) that has a cab only big enough for 1 person (maybe 2 small people) and has a little truck bed in the back. I mention this because as we were climbing the hill with all of our luggage this funny man, who barely fit in his Ape, drove past us a few times. Each time we thought, “wouldn’t it be nice to have one of those?” Well, on about his third pass, he pulled over and stopped. He got out of his little vehicle and gestured for us to put our luggage in the truck bed. We looked at him, unable to communicate, looked at each other and thought “Hell Yeah!” We loaded up as much as his little vehicle could carry and managed to communicate that we were going to Santa Chiara (the name of our school building). He said something and nodded that he knew where that was. Then he got back into his funny little Ape and drove off. I thought, “shit, I hope we see our stuff again!” We all laughed, figuring this was part of the adventure, and continued walking up the hill, but this time carrying MUCH less baggage. We had to stop once to ask for directions, as winding through this old town is very confusing, but we finally made it. As we approached the school building our new friend was there, parked in front, with all of our luggage! Oh, thank God! We laughed, thanked him profusely and unloaded our bags from his little truck. We tried to compensate him by handing him money but he was adamant not to accept anything more than our appreciation. I couldn’t believe it. Talk about a random act of kindness. We thanked him and thanked him as he climbed back into his truck and drove away. What a wonderful way to start this new adventure! I’m still amazed by his act of kindness and generosity. This picture isn’t actually of him, but this is the same type of vehicle. We see them everywhere here. I imagine they’re great for farm work.


The school we’re studying at is an American art school / cultural center named Italart. It’s run by the founder Paolo (an Italian native), his wife Sharon, and a few other family members who manage the administration. A large part of the daily operations of the school, dining hall, and student support is managed by 4 individuals called Resident Coordinators (RC’s), and they’re wonderful! Very cool people. The four of them are all recent college graduates who live here full-time and pretty much run things. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know them. The family of office staff is equally wonderful and has been unbelievably helpful. The classes we take are taught primarily by the faculty of each school bringing students here, and occasionally by local Italian guest lecturers and artists. Currently there are students from four schools here; Cal Poly Pomona (graduates & undergraduates), Auburn Alabama (graduates), Texas A&M (undergraduates) and University of Texas (undergraduates). There are a total of 135 students here and about 6 full-time faculty, plus the administrators. All of the students from our school, except for one architecture graduate, are studying landscape architecture. Most of the students from the other schools are studying architecture, though there are several studying construction, communications, and business too. Each school has its own classes and its own program.

The school is in a large building & grounds known as Santa Chiara is named after the 13th century order of nuns who used to inhabit a building on these grounds as a convent. The building, as it exists today, was originally also a convent and is 400 years old. It contains classrooms, studios, a computer lab, dining hall, dorms, and offices. The grounds surrounding the school include a beautiful courtyard and a large grassy area. It’s really quite a beautiful place.

The building on the left is our school. You have to watch out when you step out of the door as cars go whizzing by, even down this very narrow street. You can barely comfortably fit a small car and a person on the street at once.

The front door to our school.



The building is in a “U” shape and this wonderful courtyard is in the middle. The yellow chipping plaster revealing the beautiful stone underneath is incredible. I’ve heard that sometimes students as, “When are they going to fix up this building?” But I wouldn’t change it for anything. It’s funny though, in the U.S. we would probably see this as something that needs to be repaired, but in many parts of old Europe this aesthetic is beautiful. This courtyard is where we have our late afternoon painting class until the weather gets too cool. What a classroom huh? We also often hang out here and talk, eat, or drink wine. I love Italy! We even have some resident turtles who wonder around the courtyard and a resident crow named Henry who will sit on your arm and try to steal your paint brush or anything shiny he can get his beak on.

If you turn around in the courtyard this is your view of the valley below.

One of my favorite features of the school building is the dining hall. Yes, I spend a lot of time there. We are fed so well that I can’t believe it. In the morning we get two items for breakfast (cereal, pastries, fruit, yogurt, cappuccino, etc) plus anything additional we want to buy. In the afternoon we get a wonderful 3-course lunch. I’m not kidding here. And in the evening we get a delicious 3-course dinner. Can you believe that? There are two chefs, local to the town, who do all of the cooking for the 150 people here. They continually create incredible meals every day. I don’t know how they do it! Eating in the dining hall is really a fun experience. 30 minutes before dinner the bar opens (which is run by the RC’s) so you can buy your drinks, snacks, beer or wine. Then comes the bread, followed by either pasta or soup, followed by a meat dish and a salad or veggi, followed by fruit or dessert. Then the bar opens up again for 30 minutes after meals so you can buy your cappuccino or digestivo (after-dinner drink).

Here’s our dining hall.

And, of course the bar. I’ve dropped quite a few duckets here. Heck, wine is only 5 euro a bottle and beer is only 2! And it’s good!

This is part of our group sitting down for our first dinner at Santa Chiara. Notice the bottle to person ratio? I think it’s about 1:1. I love Italy. These are some of my wonderful classmates whom I’m enjoying very much and really getting to know well. I’m lucky to be going to school with such a fun, smart and talented group.


Most students live in the school building, in group dorms. But we grad students from Cal Poly get spoiled. The Cal Poly grad women live in an apartment just down the street and the grad men, along with a few undergrad men, live in a separate dorm building just across the street named Casa Vescavo. The building has a beautiful, old exterior made of stone and it’s so nice to live separately from the school. Although our dorm house gets plenty loud sometimes, it’s still likely quieter than the main dorms. Our house is also quite a bit nicer than the main dorms and we have more space. In our building we have 5 rooms, 4 bathrooms and 13 men. I share a room with my buddy Jason, and across the hall are our friends Tyrone and Scott who share a room. Between our two rooms is the bathroom that the four of us share. It’s a bit crowded sometimes, and anyone who knows me knows I love my bathroom time. But I try to be quick and not hog all the shower time. It’s just not easy being so damned handsome.

This is the outside of our dorm house, on the left. The room Jason & I share is the top right window.

Another view of our house.

When you first walk in, and up a few stairs, you enter our living room (aka – social lounge).

This is my bedroom, which is really quite comfy. It’s not fancy, but it has nice plaster walls, brick tiled flooring and a beautiful brick and wood beam ceiling. I look forward to a good night’s sleep after a very difficult day of painting, site seeing and drinking wine.

This is the fireplace in our room. Unfortunately it doesn’t work, but it makes a great bench and cabinet.

And here’s our bathroom! Yeah, kinda weird to post a picture of the bathroom, I know. But after traveling for 4 weeks, having such a nice bathroom where you can actually put your stuff away in is a real luxury! And it even has a full-sized shower!

To sum it up, the school is great, the staff is great, the food is great, and the town is great. Yeah, living in Tuscany doesn’t suck. So, there’s our first introduction to Castiglion Fiorentino and school at Santa Chiara. More adventures to come soon!