EuroTour 2009

Our flight from London to Newark has arrived safely.. Thanks to all the students for creating a wonderful trip!

Now to start preparing for EuroTour ‘10!

After two days of class, today is our final day on the trip before flying home. Many students have opted to make use of this free day to attend Wimbledon. Another couple is seeing a Les Mis’ matinee. We will have a “last night get-together” tonight, and then head for the airport around 7:45 tomorrow morning. See everyone soon!

After a “rocky” night of travel on the boat from Ejsberg, Denmark to Harwich, England, we have now arrived safely in London. Tonight we will take the group to Covent Garden. Over the next few days will be the classes, to a number of art galleries and museums for the art courses and to Bletchley Park for the CSC class.

~Professor Turkett

We arrived safely in Copenhagen at about 1900 last night. Both ART courses had class visits to museums today, while the CSC students have a 1 city break. Many students are going to go to Malmo, Sweden, a 20 minute train ride away, to add one more city and countryto their itinerary. Tonight is a cultural event, a show at a local jazz house.

We leave tomorrow at about 1430 for London, the last city of the trip. Timesure flies! We spend one night on a cruise ferrycrossing the North Sea, and then have 5 nights in London before heading home next Thursday.

Professor Turkett

It’s 11:52pm, and Day 2 of Berlin has drawn to a close. After arriving at about 1:00 yesterday, most of us caught up on some sleep or explored the area around our hotel (on the Kurfurstendam in West Berlin) before having a group dinner.

This morning was a group tour of some of the main sites in the heart of Berlin, focusing particularly on the post-WWII period. The sites visited included: Checkpoint Charlie, the Topography of Terror, Potsdamer Platz, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Holocaust Memorial), the Brandenburg Gate, and the Reichstag.

Later in the day, a small but hardy group attended the 5.25 hour Wagner opera, Tristan und Isolde, the Berlin cultural event.

Tomorrow morning, Dr. Curley’s ART 103 Art History Survey class will be visiting the Pergamon Museum, a musuem which most imporantly showcases the frieze of the Pergamon Altar which was recovered between 1878 and 1886.

We have arrived safely in Prague, after an early (train leaving at 6:53) train from Krakow. The trip took 7 hours.

The ART 281 students will have a class on the Art Nouveau Movement tomorrow morning. We are staying at the Hotel Grand Evropa, which is the classic example of art nouveau hotels in Prague, and which was once one of the grandest hotels in Prague (sadly, not so much anymore).

Next stop is Berlin, where all three classes will hold classes in different museums. The trip will also slow down a little, as we stay in Berlin for 4 days (equal to the length of time in Paris). The trip is 3/5ths over, with 4 cities left - Prague, Berlin, Copenhagen, and London.

We have arrived safely in Krakow, after a long day of traveling, made even longer by a 35 or so minute train delay in Breclav, Czech Republic.

We passed through four countries just today in our 12 hour train trip - Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland.

Many students are pondering and preparing themselves for a visit to the Auschwitz concentration camp while we are here.

~Professor Turkett

Good morning from Budapest… We have been quite busy in Venice and Budapest, hence the slow posting rate. One of our two hard travel days was last Friday (12 hours, on a bus, 2 trains, and vans) got us from Venice to Budapest, and then today we travel for another 12 hours, from Budapest to Krakow (2 trains with a long layover). Everyone is doing pretty well…

In Venice, the ART 103 class visited the Accademia, the ART 281 class learned about a long list of St. Marks Square objects, and the CSC class visited a technology-heavy Venice Bienniale entry from the Netherlands, dropstuff.nl.

In Budapest, the CSC class visited the Terror Haza, a museum that chronicles the post WWII political history of Hungary (control by first a puppet Nazi government, the Arrowcross govt., and then by the Russian communist system). In the class setting, this was used to discuss “control of information” - what can happen if information distribution is centralized (propoganda) and whether or not new media forms (blogging, twittering) are acting as ways to work around centralized information structures.

~Professor Turkett

Arrived safely in Venice.. it is a hot Mediterranean day!

After our day in Rome yesterday, this morning,the ART 103 students are at the Ufizzi gallery, the major Renaissance art museum. Many of the other students have tickets to go in later this afternoon.

Tomorrow we head to Venice.. our first day will include a visit to Casa Artom, the house that Wake Forest owns on the Grand Canal. There is an intensive Italian course being taught there currently - it will be nice to have our students catch up with some of their friends who are in that program in Venice.

Professor Turkett