Orientation and General Information
Arrivals and Departures
Participants: Customarily, all participants arrive on Friday in order to be able to attend the Participants’ Conference. You should therefore plan to arrive on Friday, July 7th. If you absolutely cannot attend the Participants’ Conference, you should arrive no later than Sunday, July 9th. It is imperative that participants stay for the entire three-week session, so you should plan to depart only on Saturday, July 29th. Please also note that due to the special rates we receive from the hotel, and in order for your roommate not to have to foot the bill of your late arrival or early departure, anyone who arrives late or leaves early will still be charged for the duration of their stay.
Due to the time it takes to get to or from Città di Castello, you should plan to arrive in the morning to either Rome, Florence, Bologna, Perugia, or Pisa so that you have time to get there (see Travel). Also, you should plan your return trip, leaving any of this cities in the afternoon. Keep in mind that getting from Città di Castello to Rome or Florence takes about 4 to 5 hours. All participants should contact the Graduate Assistants, Brandon Wadlington (bwadlington@tamu.edu) and Haley Burke (burkeh@tamu.edu), regarding the date and expected time of their arrival in Città di Castello.
The Graduate Assistant is responsible for the Participants’ Conference. Those who will be offering a presentation at the Conference will have 15-20 minutes presentation time. Please inform Brandon Wadlington (bwadlington@tamu.edu) and Haley Burke (burkeh@tamu.edu) by e-mail of the title of your presentation.
Faculty: It is important for us and the hotel to know as soon as possible when you plan on arriving and departing. Please email Kristi Sweet (k-sweet@tamu.edu), Brandon Wadlington (bwadlington@tamu.edu), and Haley Burke (burkeh@tamu.edu) with these dates as soon as possible. Please also fill out a Hotel Le Mura room request form and FAX it or send it as a PDF email attachment to the Hotel Le Mura. Make sure that you indicate on this form your date of arrival and date of departure, that is, the day you will actually leave the hotel (not the last night you will be sleeping there). You have been emailed this form to fill out.
Hotel Information
Participants and faculty will mostly be housed in the Hotel Le Mura, not far from the center of Città di Castello. The hotel also has some small apartments and supplementary rooms very close to the hotel that will be used if necessary. Students will send deposit cheques to us or pay the hotel directly; faculty will deal with the hotel directly.
Again, all hotel reservations must be faxed or sent as a PDF email attachment to Hotel Le Mura, via the form you have been provided via email:
Via Borgo Farinario
I -06012 Città di Castello (Italy)
Tel. (+39) 075/8521070
[From the U.S.: 011.39.075.852.1070]
Fax (+39) 075/8521350 8524791
Email: direzione@hotellemura.it
Meals
- All room rates include half-pension, that is, a continental breakfast (7:30-9:00 AM) and dinner (7:30 PM) at Hotel Le Mura.
- A (mostly) vegetarian lunch buffet will also be available at the Hotel Le Mura for €5. You will be asked to sign up for lunch the day before. If you do not wish to take the buffet at the hotel, there are many restaurants and pizza places around the main piazza at the end of the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele and on the side streets surrounding the Circolo degli Illuminati.
- During our dinners at the Hotel you will be asked to choose the dinner for the next day. Please remember to sign the sheet with your name and remember what you chose to eat, as you are expected to stick to the menu you have chosen the next day. If you are planning not to be at dinner the next day, please write this on the same sheet (and please make of this just an exception; it is expected of the participants and faculty to be at dinners at the Hotel). If you would like a vegetarian meal, please indicate this on the sheet as well.
- Beverages are not included in the meal, which means that you have to order them separately.
- All beverages and food consumed at the hotel should be purchased at the hotel bar or in the restaurant.
Courses, Lectures, and Text Seminars
- All morning sessions of the Collegium will take place in the Salone degli Specchi in the Circolo degli Illuminati, which is near the Piazza Matteotti, at the end of the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, in the city center. The Circolo is within easy walking distance of the hotel.
- All afternoon session will take place in the conference room of the Hotel Le Mura. Text seminars will also meet at various locations throughout the hotel.
Transportation within Città di Castello
Almost everything you will need or want is within easy walking distance in the city. Should you wish to venture further out (for example, to the town swimming pool) there is very efficient bus service. The buses are orange and are labeled APM. A stop for most of the main bus lines is just outside the hotel beyond the city wall.
Finances
You will need to pay the balance of your hotel bill upon departure. Credit cards are accepted. Participants will be expected to share a room. If there is someone whom you would like as your roommate, please let Brandon and Haley know right away. Faculty may also share rooms. Any faculty traveling with a spouse or partner should reserve a double room at the double room rate; for faculty traveling with children, the additional board rate for children is as follows: 2 – 5 years old €20.00 / day; 5 – 10 years old, €25.00 / day; over 10 years old, €30.00 / day; cradle, €10.00 / day. If you depart one day early from your reserved time, then you are required to pay €25 if in a double occupancy room and €35 if in a single occupancy room. If you depart two or more days early, then you are required to pay €20 per day if in a double occupancy room and €30 per day if in a single occupancy room.
Mail is unpredictable in Italy, so you should not count on getting urgent materials without sending them by private courier.
Internet Access
The Hotel Le Mura has one Internet terminal in a room next to the lobby. The cost is .30 cents for the first 10 minutes, .50 cents up to 30 minutes, and €1 up to 1 hour. The Hotel also provides the service of Wi-Fi access included already in the room price. The Wi-Fi works fine in almost all the rooms of the Hotel.
Several Internet terminals are in a shop close to Hotel Le Mura on the street that leads from the Hotel Le Mura to the main Corso, on the left hand side of the street. It is very reasonable (approximately .50 cents for up to 1 hour of Internet access).
Photocopies
In the past we made an arrangement with the copy shop right at the beginning of the Corso Dimensione Grafica (left hand side). We still need to verify this arrangement for this year but in the past the cost for one copy was .7 cents.
This copy shop is open from 9:00-1:00 and 3:30-5:30, Monday through Friday. You can also print out from a flash drive in this shop. You can make photocopies also at the Internet shop for .10 cents a copy.
Health
- If you have special medications, be sure to bring them in the original prescription bottle. If you need emergency medical care, you can go to the local hospital for a reasonable cost, sometimes for no cost. It is often possible to get good medical advice, including prescriptions, for less serious matters at a pharmacy.
- You should also consider getting an International Student Identity Card (ISIC) or an International Faculty Identity Card. In addition to getting you into museums at a discount, the card provides excellent medical insurance and help in emergencies. Most of those who deal with international student travel can either give you a card or tell you how to get one.
Books
Although the Collegium has a small permanent library, you cannot count on finding specific books that you might need. So be sure to bring any such books along. A list of required books for the Collegium courses and lectures will be posted with the program of the session a few weeks before the beginning of the Collegium.
Library
The Collegium Library is located in the basement conference room of the Hotel Le Mura (next to the breakfast room) and can be accessed at any time. If you take a book out of the room, please sign your name and indicate the title of the book on the self-check-out sheet located in the library room. If you have recently published a book, please consider bringing a copy along with you and donating it to the Collegium library.
Social Events
We try to dress formally for dinner each Friday evening. In this case ‘formal’ means ‘the best gear you have available.’ In the past, this has ranged from a tuxedo to a clean T-shirt and jeans, though we hope most will find something dressy in between these two extremes. We invite you to bring and wear costumes and accessories of your choice. Each Friday after dinner we will have a wine party. The wine party is a time for dancing, listening to whatever music you would like (though preferably music we can dance to), drinking, visiting, etc. If you have good CDs for dancing, bring them. We have a CD player. An auxiliary cable will also be available for connecting computers or iPods as well. If you are interested in other social activities, come prepared for them. In the past, we have had poetry readings and concerts and even productions of Antigone and The Clouds. We will do what we can to help you organize any such possibilities. If you play a musical instrument, and it is portable, do bring it. There is also a website for Città di Castello, https://www.cittadicastelloturismo.it
Miscellaneous
- Weather: Because the courses will be held at a site about 10 minutes walking distance from the hotel you would be well advised to bring along a travel umbrella. It is almost certain to rain at some point during the three weeks.
- Laundry: There are no laundry facilities in the hotel and having your laundry done outside the hotel can be extremely expensive, though there is a self-serve laundromat (approximately a 20-minute walk from the hotel) that is convenient and inexpensive: the Lavanderia Self-Service Lavapiù is located at Via Francesco Pierucci 5. Most participants have in the past washed their clothes in the sink in their room. You may want to keep all of this in mind when deciding what and how many clothes to bring.
Final Word
We will do everything in our power to make this a rewarding and intellectually stimulating experience for you. Please remember, however, that foreign travel, no matter how well planned or organized, always comes with its challenges and frustrations. You thus have to expect that shops will sometimes be closed when you need them to be open, that train employees will go on strike at the very worst moment, that dinners will sometimes be slow in coming, that the air conditioning will break down on the hottest day of the summer . . . You get the point: things happen, and they are more apt to happen when you are away from home. We simply ask that you try to take things in stride and demonstrate patience and courtesy with the hotel staff and others you meet in the city. We ourselves will do our utmost to make your stay as comfortable and enjoyable as possible.