Every fall, our seniors obtain passports, pack their bags, and get on a plane headed for Rome. Ambrose seniors have spent many years working toward this 12-day journey, a culmination of our school’s educational experience. Their route follows the history cycle taught from second grade on: ancient/medieval/modern. They start in Rome because it is the ancient city. They begin at the catacombs then visit the Rafael rooms at the Vatican. A typical tour at the Vatican does not include seeing Rafael’s “School of Athens.” However, there is keen interest from our students since this work is reproduced on our school’s Providence Room wall. Reuben White, the seniors’ tour director, always comments how much he enjoys the Ambrose students because they actually know what they are seeing and are ready with detailed questions at each site. From Rome, the students travel to Florence and San Gimignano, a medieval village locked in time and surrounded by towers. During this leg, one stop into modern history was made when they visited a U.S. war memorial built for the 4,000 U.S. servicemen buried in a field, a sobering reminder of our part in World War II.

Florence brings reminders of the birth of Renaissance. Students get to see Michelangelo’s David, and hike up to the medieval cathedral Duomo there. The trigonometry-architecture (mathematical and architectural study of buildings) students have already made detailed studies of these sites. From there, our seniors were packed like sardines on a memorable night train trip from Florence to Paris through Switzerland, which led to The Louvre, Notre Dame, and the Eiffel Tower. They traveled on into London where you can still see a few vestiges of when Romans occupied the land. The British Museum held many fascinating artifacts such as the Rosetta stone and Egyptian mummies.

What is truly inspirational about the trip is that these students not only are getting a hands-on look at the forming of our world, but they have learned through the years all about delayed satisfaction. Most of our students must earn at least part, if not all, of the cost for this trip. Lawnmowing, babysitting, bake sales, and odd job earnings inevitably go toward their Europe trip fund rather than the immediate gratification of new clothes, music, or movies. Various fundraising events abound throughout the year as the current junior class scrambles to raise the last dollars needed for this once-in-a-lifetime experience. As a part of our core curriculum for seniors, the Europe trip ends up teaching our students much more than history.