Short-Term Programs - Field Trips & Excursions

As a way of experiencing the distinctive traditions and cultural flavor of this region, students attend regional cultural events and take one-day and weekend study trips to different places throughout Central Europe. The goal of these trips and cultural events is to place students inside the different current and historical contexts of the region.  Students spend their time not in the classroom, but in the city with a single guest lecturer each day speaking about different aspects of the city’s life.

Five-Day Trip to Krakow

The city 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 five-day program of study  concentrates on themes such as Jewish Krakow, with lectures on the Holocaust, a visit to Auschwitz 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 and economic development and its relationship to the E.U.  and visits to museums and galleries.  Students are offered group dinners and time to explore this charming and intimate city on their own.  Students are housed in a very comfortable, high-quality small hotel. The Dartmore staff and students are the hotel’s only guests for the five days, so we will have the undivided attention and service of the hotel staff.

Two-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 centuries.  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 two days in Vienna is to place the 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 different aspects of the city’s life.

Other Field Trips

Other trips include the medieval city of Cesky Krumlov, located in South Bohemia and protected by UNESCO, the Czech Republic’s chic, art nouveau spa-town of Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad), and the historic city of Kutna Hora, with its UNESCO protected cathedral.