College News

Historic Rome

Forty three students studying History at QE have just returned from a five day visit to Rome.  Gary Darby, Head of History, led the trip and explains:

‘It’s the third time we have visited Rome and each time we try to tailor the programme to appeal to both Modern and Tudor History students. We stayed in the heart of the old city in the Hotel Pomezia and were within walking distance of the Campo d’Fiori (Piazza of Flowers) and the Renaissance square, the Piazza Navona. We ate in local restaurants each night and had a number of walking tours in the evenings visiting the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps and an ice cream parlour which boasted over a hundred different varieties of ‘gelati’.

We all visited the Vatican with a guided tour of the Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum, the Pantheon and the cliff top monastery at Monte Cassino which  has a sixth century Benedictine monastery and is the site of one of the bloodiest battles of World War II. At other times we broke up into two groups with the Modern History students visiting Mussolini’s villa, the Museum for the Liberation of Rome and the EUR district of Rome which features a number of examples of Fascist architecture. The Tudor students visited Il Jesu church, the original Jesuit church, the Castel Sant’Angelo and the Capitoline Museum.

The whole trip was a resounding success and I am sure that students will look back with fondness on a wonderful experience in a magical and historic city.’