Study Tours
STUDY DAY AT MEREWORTH, KENT
Yotes Court, Mere House and St Lawrence’s Church
Saturday 1 May 2010 from 10.30am
Mereworth is a village with a fascinating selection of buildings of the highest quality. Yotes Court is a compact, symmetrical H-plan house of 1656-8. Mere House was built as the Rectory in 1780 by Luffman Atterbury in accordance with designs by Nicholas Revett. St Lawrence’s Church is widely acclaimed as the finest eighteenth century church in Kent, built 1744-6, probably to the design of Roger Morris. SAHGB member and Mereworth resident Andrew Wells will lead the Study Day. Please note that it will not be possible to include Mereworth Castle.
Tickets, priced £40 (£20 students) include lunch, donations and notes. Please apply, on the booking form below, to Andrew Martindale, Flat 4, 23 London Street, Edinburgh EH3 6LY. Please make your cheque payable to SAHGB and enclose a STAMPED ADDRESSED ENVELOPE.
SAHGB STUDY TRIPS TO NAPLES 2009-10
Naples, capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and for many centuries the largest city in Italy, is a fascinating and an astonishing place. Today the urban population is nearly a million while Greater Naples – the built-up area around the bay – has no less than 3.8 million inhabitants. This is a city with a diverse history covering at least 2,500 years where Greek, Roman, Norman, Italian, Spanish and French influences have each left a distinctive architectural legacy and various cultural traditions. Naples is a city seething with people and a place of quite extraordinary energy.
In contrast to cities like Pisa and Bologna, Naples is far too large and too complex to permit a comprehensive architectural tour to be undertaken in just one week; there are, moreover, too many museums and galleries of the highest quality to make it possible to devise a conducted tour which is likely to please all tastes. The programme set out below makes provision for one and a half free days in the city so that members may decide which of the many areas of particular interest they might wish to visit on their own. There is a good suburban railway network and adequate buses so that – apart from the tendency for the traffic to become clogged – it is an easy place to get around.
Tour dates are as follows: 1 Saturday 18 to Sunday 26 April 2009; 2 Saturday 19 to Sunday 27 September 2009; 3 Saturday 10 April to Sunday 18 April 2010 [booking closed].
Schedule
While details may change, the main lines for the tour proposed will be as follows.
Saturday: The group meets at 5.30 pm to walk through part of the Royal centre of Naples followed by dinner taken together.
Sunday: First Bus Tour to some 18th-century ‘Vesuvian’ villas, the Roman Villa S. Marco, Castellammare di Stabia, and the Greek archaeological site of Paestum with its three Doric temples. Lunch and dinner are provided on this day.
Monday: First walking tour in Naples: Castel S. Elmo and the Certosa di S. Martino in the morning. Afternoon in the old town.
Tuesday: Second walking tour in Naples.
Wednesday: Second Bus Tour visiting Benevento - Arch of Trajan and Roman Theatre - mausolea of the Via Appia at S. Maria Capua Vetere and the ampitheatre there. Afternoon at the Reggia di Caserta, its gardens and the Royal silkworks of S. Leucio. Both lunch and dinner are provided on this day.
Thursday: Morning walking tour in Naples. Afternoon free.
Friday: Free day to visit any of the following: the Archaeological Museum, Capodimonte Museum, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Vesuvius, Ischia or Capri.
Saturday: Morning walking tour in Naples – (probably some Baroque interiors). Afternoon Bus Tour. A final dinner is provided for this day.
Sunday: Study tour ends after breakfast.
Booking
Costs for tours 1 and 2 were Euro 890 per person in a single room and Euro 750 per person in a double room sharing. However, the costs of tour 3 in 2010 may vary with any local fluctuations in charges. There will be a reduction of Euro 100 for bona fide students, and any surplus at the end of the tours will be used to increase the fund for the President’s essay prize or similar. Payment can be made in sterling, but the total cost will be based on the Euro exchange rate at the time. Each study tour begins and ends in Naples.
Members are responsible for making their own travel arrangements and should plan to have arrived in the city in time to take part in an initial walking tour of a part of the centre at 5.30 pm on the Saturday. Members who book are advised to take out comprehensive travel insurance at the time of booking, as costs will have been incurred. Each group will stay in a three star hotel - Albergo Napolit’amo, Via S.Tommaso d’Aquino 15 - which is in the centre of the historic city in a distinctly ‘safe’ area. Breakfast in the hotel, six additional meals, the cost of entry to properties and the hire of buses for two and a half days’ touring outside of Naples are included in the price of each tour.
Recent trips organised by Professor Rowan for the Society to Pisa (2001) and to Bologna (2006 & 2007) were each oversubscribed and greatly appreciated by those who attended.
Contact
Professor Alistair Rowan
22 Leeson Park
Dublin 6
Email: alistairrowan@eircom.net