The Summer Begins at CCI

by Geoff Smith, Head of the Summer Programme

I am not sure who said “when humans make plans the gods laugh” but there was truth to that yesterday. With Maurizio at the wheel, the gentleman who has driven CCI students for more than a decade, my colleague David Stephens and I left Lanciano at 8 a.m. Three and half hours later we were dropped off at Leonardo Di Vinci airport. The code for the airport is FCO, which is the abbreviation for Fiumicino, the town on the Mediterranean Sea just west of Rome where the airport is located. To say FCO was a zoo is an understatement. Add to this that apparently many baggage handlers had booked in sick. The Air Transat flight arrived a little early at about 1 p.m., and it seemed to take forever to collect luggage. One student, who came on an earlier flight that arrived at 12:30 p.m., waited for almost an hour and a half before her bags appeared on the carousel. Finally we collected staff, students and luggage, and headed off to the bus. A van had come in with us to carry the luggage, so once it was loaded we departed FCO at just after 3 p.m., a full hour later than we planned. The route to Lanciano from FCO along the Autostrade takes one in an almost a straight line from the Mediterranean Sea to the Adriatic Sea, through the Apennine Mountains. The scenery is spectacular.

With a couple of “pit stops” along the way we were on course to reach Lanciano at 6:30 p.m. Going into Lanciano from the Autostrade the bus developed a problem, perhaps a consequence of the hot weather. A stop at a service station rectified this but delayed us even more. Finally at close to 7 p.m. we arrived at the Torre Montanare.  Originally a fort and prison it has been converted into a cultural centre. It is also where we depart from and go back to when CCI is on the road, be a trip to the beach after school or a major excursion to Florence. You can see images of the Torre by clicking here.

The residence Dons were waiting to take the students to their residences. The van driver had already unloaded the luggage so this went smoothly. We had scheduled dinner for 7 p.m. but switched to later start. Once the students had dropped off their luggage in their rooms it was off to the Allegria for dinner.

The Allegria 

Fresh fruit!

Typical dinner buffet

Hungry gentlemen

Pasta pomodoro and lasagna

First meal in Lanciano

At 8:30 p.m. we all met at the school where the teachers were introduced. The students then headed off for an orientation tour of Lanciano, conducted by their teachers. Then back to residence for meetings, unpacking and hopefully, a good night’s sleep.

Mr. Simpson leading a tour

The girls explore Lanciano

My thanks to CCI’s renaissance man David Stephens for the photographs in this first edition of our blog. I say “renaissance man” as he is as comfortable in a science lab teaching Biology and Chemistry as he is in the CCI art room teaching Visual Arts. He is also Vice Principal of the summer school.