I’ll teach one class on Monday and Wednesday afternoons and the other class on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. A couple of Fridays will be used for group trips while the others are free time for you. This allows you to take some short trips on your own and explore the area. You will have textbooks and assignments, of course, but you’ll also have free time to explore and learn on your own.

If you’ve never been abroad before, you’ll be welcome to join me as I visit favorite places and explore new ones in my free time, but you’re also just as free to explore on your own.

We’ll stay in inexpensive hotels called "pensiones". In Rome you’ll use the subway or busses to get around while in Florence, you’ll be able to walk to the places you’ll want to visit. (Do bring comfortable shoes!)

Having 3 weeks in Florence is great because it is located near some really neat small towns that look like they did years ago. (If you’ve read books or seen movies about Tuscany, that’s the part of Italy that Florence is in.) Maybe you want to go to Assisi to see where St. Francis was born and raised, or experience the 14 towers still standing around San Gimignano (where they filmed "Tea with Mussolini".) I loved visiting the striped church of Siena – not only for the beautiful marble but also to see GIANT song books from the Middle Ages.

• Who is Dr. Seward?