Meredith Travels to Italy September 22 – October 5, 2022

Autumn in Italy is glorious. It is the season for picking and pressing grapes and harvesting olives, for food festivals, for sunny (fingers crossed) weather, and for great temperatures. So, of course, we have planned a tour for Fall 2022, emphasizing food and culture, and inevitably art and history. We will be, after all, in Italy. We’ll be traveling to areas in the northern part of the country that we’ve not yet explored with Meredith Travels. We will actually take ourselves from Sea to Shining Sea – from the Adriatic to the Ligurian. We will base ourselves initially in Bologna, from which we will visit Modena, home to the world’s best Balsamic vinegar among other local delicacies, and Ravenna, home to the Byzantine mosaics that will take your breath away.

When we head west, it will be in order to visit the famed Cinque Terre (aka, the Italian Riviera), and then we’re off to the autonomous region of Aosta in the Alps, a region whose ownership has fluctuated between France and Italy through the centuries. We will gaze (longingly) at Monte Bianco (or, as the French would say, Mont Blanc – but our allegiance is to Italy!) and travel to Perloz, a small village awarded a citation for bravery following World War II for their remarkable resistance to the Nazis. There will be many stops that will surprise you with the unexpected: Did you know that Torino has the oldest Egyptian Museum in the world, as well as the church where the Shroud of Turin is located? And all along the way, there will be regional delicacies – seafood, cheeses, charcuterie, wines, pasta – and even some French-influenced cuisine! More details to follow soon.

We will begin accepting deposits for this trip in January 2022. Should you have questions or need additional information about this trip or the Travel Program, please contact Taylor Wilson Twine, ’13, at twtwine@meredith.edu.