Highlight of the Week

Sicilia, MMXVI

Over the half-term break Mr Drury, Mr King, Mr Lovell-Jones and Madame Howells took 40students from Years 9, 10, 11 and 12 on a Latin and Art Tour of Classical Sicily.

Keeping Europe's largest and most active volcano, Mount Etna, always in view, they visited places of historical interest on the island's Ionian Sea coastline.  They visited places as diverse as Sicily's second largest city, Catania, where nestled amidst its Baroque architecture with its foundations formed from volcanic rock, they found not only the remains of a 5th century BC Greek theatre, which when complete had once been able to seat 7000 people, but also in stark contrast they also found the graffiti-artwork of a French "Banksy" called C215 left on the walls of modern buildings for everyone to see!  We examined the Chalcidian archaeological remains of the island's first Greek settlers at Giardini-Naxos and then compared them to the impressive and more complete classical legacy of the Greco-Roman theatre at Taormina. 

After two days on the south east coast of the island, the Tour continued to the south west and to its Mediterranean coastline.  Here the Classical Greek heritage left behind in the Valley of the Temples at Agrigento and at Selinunte further up the coastline were visited.  At both of these fascinating sites  the students were inspired to not only find out more about the history of these places, but the temples, originally dedicated to the various deities of Hera, Aphrodite, Heracles and Concordia dating back to the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. proved to be suitable inspiration for some impressive pen and pencil artwork and photography! 

The Tour concluded with a visit to a Roman palace at Piazza Armerina; the restored remains of which featured some very sizeable and impressively detailed mosaics, with estimates conservatively guessing the number of tesserae used to be close to, if not exceeding, 120 million in number.  The mosaics displayed all manner of different aspects to the Roman world and daily life and are in an incredible state of preservation for all to see! 

The Tour proved to be a seamless, relaxed and enjoyable experience for all of those involved and the students proved themselves to be a credit to the school.