Menomonee Falls Music Dear Rome Trip Families,
We recently returned from our site visit to Italy and had a marvelous, though extremely hot, experience setting up the trip itinerary and other details for our Rome excursion. One major change you need to be alerted to regarding the trip is a slight shift in dates. Our original dates were December 27th through January 3rd. Due to availability of performance venues and trip excursions our trip has shifted one day. We will be leaving on the 28th of December and returning on January 4th. Please contact us if you have concerns regarding this change.
Part of our site visit responsibilities was to design our itinerary to fit our specific program. A formal day-by-day itinerary should arrive shortly but we would like to inform you of some exciting details in the meantime. The hotel we have selected is the Barcelo Aran Mantegna and we had a great experience there. The tour will still include the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, and the Spanish steps which are all incredible! We will also be doing a day tour to Pompeii and a day tour to the Vatican City. Our performance venues will be two exquisite basilicas in Rome; Santa Maria Sopre Minerva and Santa Maria Campitelli. These basilicas will provide once-a-lifetime performance venues for our students. Originally, we were looking at a day trip to Frascati as a performance option but found the venue unsuitable for our size ensemble. We have replaced that day trip with a tour of Castel Sant’Angelo, a fortress located on the river Tiber with exhibits of ancient weaponry and views of the entire city. We were able to book this tour exclusively for our group with no additional cost!
We will forward you the minute-by-minute itinerary as soon as possible. We also want to inform you of a mandatory meeting for all parents/students/chaperones which will take place on Monday, September 16th at 6:30pm in the High School band room. Hard copies of the itinerary and medical forms will be available at the meeting where we will provide necessary travel information and suggestions for students. We also want to recommend that if you have not applied for your passport yet to do so as soon as possible. Please make sure that your passport expiration date is no less than six months from the time of our trip. We will also be collecting COLOR photo copies of your passports (please make sure they are signed) at the beginning of the school year. Look forward to seeing at the trip meeting and have a great rest of your summer!
Merry Spencer and John Woger
Directors of Bands/Orchestra