Le foto di Kenney
by Dr. Keith Kenney

I am spending the fall on sabbatical in a northern Italian town too small to appear on a National Geographic map – and my wife, Susanna Melo, and I love it.

I have been teaching travel photography and graphic design to American students in the study abroad program run by the Consortium International University. We're in Paderno del Grappa, but to find us you'll have to look for a nearby town like Bassano del Grappa. (View map.)

Consortium International's program is on a Roman Catholic Italian boarding school campus that feels like the Horseshoe – except with more trees. Because CIU shares a campus, the program can afford to provide many of the facilities American students are used to back home. Tennis courts, an indoor pool and a weight room with a tanning bed and sauna, as well as soccer fields and basketball courts, are shared with the Italian high school students.

On clear days, you can see the nearby mountains, which have several hiking trails. At the end of October, walking back to my apartment after class, eight students passed by on their way to climb Mount Grappa. Susanna and I made a spontaneous decision to join them. We kept up for a while, but their youth and high energy soon left us behind. We never made it to the top, but during the nine hours we climbed more than 5,000 feet and then returned happy but exhausted. At the end, we stopped at an “agriturismo,” an old farm revamped into a business, and had a wonderful meal in the restaurant.

For a greater hiking challenge, you could drive about 1 1/2 hours northwest to the Dolomites. (View photo.) Or just walk through Venice, where there are no cars and everyone walks or takes a water bus to get around. A gondola ride is an expensive-but-you-must-do-it-once experience. (View photo.) Many CIU students have already hiked in another car-less area with stunning scenery – Cinque Terre. These five towns on western Italy’s Ligurian rocky coast are connected by hiking trails that run along the coast and through the vineyards in the hills above.

Urban hikers may prefer Italy’s art, festivals and architecture. Thousands of books have been written on these subjects. But many medieval re-enactments also are held in autumn in Northern Italy, including jousting contests. These usually occur in one of the many ancient walled cities with a castle for defense. (View photo.) One sunny Sunday afternoon, we saw a re-enactment of Christ’s life in a nearby town with more than 250 community members in period costumes. (View photo.) Although we have not yet visited Florence or Rome, we have driven short distances to see Byzantine mosaics (ca. 520) in Ravenna and Giotto’s frescoes painted in 1305 inside a church in Padua. (View photo.)

Consortium International administrators believe that traveling to see art and historical sites is an important part of studying abroad. Two travel weeks and three long weekends are built into the semester when the campus empties and students and faculty scatter throughout Europe. Some of students’ favorite places outside of Italy have been Munich, Prague, Krakow, the French Riviera and Paris. Ryan Air and other discount airlines (Venice-to-London for $25!) make it affordable, and taking overnight trains saves on hotel costs. The students also are savvy about finding inexpensive rooms or hostels.

Students and professors know one another better here than at most major universities. The program has 80 communication and business students and 10 faculty members this fall. One of the students is Gregory Webster, a print journalism student from USC. View photo. Like other faculty members, I eat at least one meal a day with students in the cafeteria, and we always find something interesting to discuss. If nothing else comes to mind, someone asks where we are going for the travel week or weekend, and a vivacious chitchat ensues, with a rapid succession of note exchanges. I also have eight advisees, and by the end of the semester we will have gone out to eat three times. I often see students returning from a coffee break at the local pastry shop or jogging along the twisting roads. In addition, we all attend special functions offered by the program, such as olive picking, tours of local businesses and lectures on etiquette, opera, wine tasting, and so on.

Unlike many study abroad programs, Consortium International stresses leadership. For several days before classes begin, students and faculty receive intensive instruction involving problem solving and skills for decision-making and leadership. Students also attend evening seminars, and personal coaches help them understand more about themselves as leaders. Faculty members are encouraged to incorporate the leadership philosophy in all courses. Although some students view the leadership training as an unexpected bonus, others resist what they see as unwelcome intrusion in their already-busy lives.

Another advantage of any study abroad program in Italy is the food. When students or faculty miss breakfast, they usually visit the nearby pastry shop, where the sweetest woman chats in rapid-fire Italian, whether you understand or not, and her two sons make the pastries in the kitchen. Another favorite option is the raisin bread from one of the two small general stores, or “tabacchis.” When we tire of cafeteria meals, or when traveling, we often visit a pizzeria. It is difficult to become tired of pizza when you have five pages' worth of choices, including my two favorites, seafood pizza and vegetarian pizza with artichoke hearts, spinach, zucchini, and eggplant.

Best of all, perhaps, are the three gourmet dinners for students, faculty and staff – four-hour feasts of food and wine. The first one included a white wine for the antipastos (three), followed by a red wine for the “first plate,” which is some type of pasta, then the side dishes (vegetables and salads), and of course, the “second plate” of meat or fish. Finally, there was the dessert wine with dessert, and a wonderful milkshake-looking, fruity, alcoholic drink.

Do not judge Italian wines by what you buy at Green’s or Piggly Wiggly. There's no way they can carry many of the 20,000 Italian wines available in Italy! Consortium International helps everyone sort it out with a wine-tasting session, another unusual activity of this study abroad program. My favorite wine story, though, is from a grocery store rather than a café. In the wine section at Iper are several – well, they look just like gas pumps, but when you squeeze the nozzle into your large glass jug, out comes red or white wine! And it tastes good. AND it costs about $1.20 per liter. (By comparison, most imported wine sold in the U.S. is in 750 milliliter bottles.)

One more quick comment on food and drink: When studying Italian, learning the names of eight or more types of coffee may seem difficult, but it's easier when you can taste them as you review your flashcards. (View photo.) Consortium International has a couple of coffee machines on campus. You put in about 45 cents and out comes a delicious machiatto, my favorite, or some other coffee, with the amount of sugar you prefer. If you buy your cappuccino at a café, you will pay about $1.30. (View photo.)

I plan to make a photographic presentation about travel photography based upon my teach-abroad experience when I return in the Spring. You are invited to see photographs of Slovenia, Croatia, Turkey and Italy, and I will answer questions about the CIU study abroad program. Check back later for date and time.