Arts & Architecture Program - Field Trips & Excursions
The study program is enhanced by field trips to several of
Central Europe’s most beautiful cities, including Krakow,
Vienna, Budapest, and Berlin. For the most part, during their
time outside of Prague, there is no formal classroom. Instead
lectures are given by local scholars at cooperating institutions
and during tours of museums, galleries, churches, and other
historical landmarks.
Five-Day Trip to Krakow
The town of Krakow has been considered
Poland's Heart for a thousand years. It provides the lifeblood
for the country’s creative genius; to understand Krakow is
to understand Poland. The decision to take our students to
this important city is an easy one, for it provides participants
with a chance to view another face of Central Europe.
Poland is an overwhelmingly catholic country whose proud
history includes many chapters of direct confrontation with
its eastern and western neighbors. The weeklong program
of study concentrates on themes such as Jewish Krakow,
with lectures on the Holocaust, a visit to Auschwitz,
an examination of Primo
Levis’ seminal work, and neighborhood walks of Kazimierz.
We also expose the students to lectures and a shared curriculum
with students at the Dartmore Institute’s main cooperating
institution, Jagiellonian
University, Poland's oldest and most prestigious
institution of higher learning. The students move through
a diverse curriculum that includes Polish Poetry, presentations
on Polish culture, history, post communist social development
and its relationship to the E.U., and visits to
museums and galleries. Students visit the legendary
Salt Mines, spend
a day in nature in a beautiful national park, tour castles
and attend cultural performances. The academic program runs
each morning from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m., and the rest of each day
is given over to non- mandatory cultural activities. Students
are offered group dinners and time to explore this charming
and intimate city on their own. Students are housed in a
very high quality small hotel. The Dartmore staff and students
are the hotel’s only guests for the week, so we will have
the undivided attention and service of the hotel staff.
Three-Day Trip to Vienna
To witness an equally rich and historic dimension of Central
Europe, one must journey to Vienna, renowned for its architecture,
composers, and painters. While walking the Ringstrasse, the
famous street that encircles the historical center of Vienna,
you are transported back in time and feel the spirit of creativity.
Vienna, the home of such influential and important individuals
as Mozart, Wagner, Freud, and Klimt, was arguably the premier
city of Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century. The
city reads as a living text that chronicles many of the major
events that shaped the development of modern European art,
architecture, and culture.
The goal of these three days in Vienna is to place students
inside this historical text. Students spend the majority
of their time not in the classroom, but in the city with a
single guest lecturer each day speaking about a particular
aspect of the city’s life. They tour many of the most famous
places in Vienna, including Stephansdom
(St. Stephen’s Cathedral), the 13th century gothic
masterpiece that towers over the city’s center, and the Hofburg (Imperial
Palace), the famous Habsburg palace that also dates back
to the 13th century. Other visits include Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum
of Fine Arts) and the baroque palace, Schloss Belvedere, which
houses the Austrian National Gallery.
Students also have an opportunity to meet other university
students in Vienna. We stay close to downtown, about 10 minutes
by train, in a clean, airy, and well-equipped pension. This
trip is three weekdays and an optional weekend.
Three-Day Trip to Budapest
Students experience the intriguing mix of eastern and western
influences that Budapest offers. You can smell the spices
of the orient and feel the influence of former empires, both
Ottoman and Austrian. The Danube River cuts this beautiful
city into distinct halves. Buda, the western and older half,
contains remnants of the city’s medieval past. Students begin
their journey into the intriguing world that was medieval
Europe in the heart of Buda at the Magdalen Tower, all which
remains from a Gothic church destroyed in WWII. Students then
visit the Royal Palace,
which contains the National Gallery and the Budapest History
Museum.
Once crossing the Danube via the famous Chain Bridge, students
visit the Citadella, the imposing fortress
built by the Habsburgs to defend the city after the 1848 -
49 Revolution. Now firmly in Pest, the tour of the city continues
to the Vajdahunyad
Castle, the Museum of Fine
Arts, and the neo- Renaissance St. Stephen’s
Basilica, and the cafes, gardens, and hot springs of Margaret Island.
Students may also spend their time in any of the city’s famous
bathhouses.
Students also have an opportunity to meet other university
students in Budapest. We stay close to downtown, about 15
minutes by train, in a clean, airy, and well-equipped pension.
This trip is three weekdays and an optional weekend.
Three-Day Trip to Berlin
Once again Berlin has become the cultural, political,
and economic center of Germany. Culminated by the return
of the Reichstag in 2002, the German parliament, this city
has completed an incredible transformation from a city divided
by a physical wall and competing ideologies to a vibrant metropolis
that celebrates a unified Germany. Students tour the city
and experience these profound changes as they visit the historical
places of Berlin’s complicated past and the new, modern cultural
centers, including the Museumsinsel,
the famed Museum Island, one of Europe’s premiere centers
of modern art and architecture.
Other visits include the New National Gallery, with its 19th
and 20th century paintings and sculptures by Picasso,
Klee, and many other German expressionists, the Museum of Modern
Design, dedicated to the artists of the Bauhaus school,
and the Museum of Decorative Arts, which contains artwork
ranging from 16th century silver artifacts to Art
Deco furniture.
Students also have an opportunity to meet other university
students in Berlin. We stay close to downtown, about 20 minutes
by train, in a clean, airy, and well-equipped pension. This
trip is three weekdays and an optional weekend.
Other Field Trips
Other trips include the medieval city of Cesky
Krumlov, located in South Bohemia and protected by UNESCO,
the breathtaking spa-town of Karlovy
Vary (Karlsbad), the historic town of Mikulov, nestled in the winemaking
region of Moravia, the former 14th century royal
town of Levoca in Slovakia, as well as our
Art Retreat held in the picturesque village of Slavonice.
In an effort to expand students’ horizons even further, the
Institute’s administrative staff will arrange additional weekend
excursions to other cities and towns throughout the Czech
Republic and the region. These excursions will not be part
of the formal Arts & Architecture program.
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