Part Sixty-eight--Swords of Honor: A Knight’s Crusade for Right, part eight - Latin Class Field Trip

One week for Latin class I gave my students this extra credit sentence to translate into Latin: 😁"The beautiful, sweet, faithful, noble, Latin teacher (feminine), loves the students." They all translated it perfectly!

I love medieval architecture, and I wanted our students to see the three types of buildings we were studying this year: castles, monasteries, and cathedrals. I planned a trip to northern California to see some of the best examples in the United States.

Our trip consisted of 8 students and 3 moms in a 12 passenger van. The students played a ukulele and sang, and had a great time visiting. The first day we got to Sacramento just in time for rush-hour traffic, so I suggested we make a quick detour to see the state capitol. 

This was a good time to test the students in some classical architecture terms.

CASTLE

The next day we traveled to Napa to the Castello di Amorosa. It was built using medieval methods, and might be the closest thing we have to a medieval castle in the United States. 

Our Latin tee shirts that they received at the end of the previous year.

Mikayla and India at the drawbridge

Giselle loved this place as much as I did.

 This Knight's Hall is breathtaking, with murals from floor to ceiling.

Even the restroom stalls were beautifully painted.

I loved traveling with Crystal and Tammy!

MONASTERY

Before lunchtime we left the castle and traveled three hours to get to a monastery in Vina.

 

I found this monastery while watching a NOVA documentary on cathedrals. The stones are from an 800 year old monastery chapter house from Spain. 

 

William Randolph Hearst bought the chapter house with the intent to reconstruct it for his mother, Phoebe Apperson Hearst. After bribing dock officials, he had the stones illegally transported to America. They ended up in sitting in Golden Gate Park for year.

 

Later a Cistercian monk heard about the stones. The chapter house will be used as the main chapel of this monastery.

 

So we got to stand in this reconstructed 800 year old building. This was a close as we could get to being in Europe!

 

CATHEDRAL

The next day we drove to San Francisco to see Grace Cathedral. Our van broke down when we got to the city, so while the van got fixed I led the rest of us up Nob Hill by foot. It was nice to do something physical, but everyone was glad to finally get to the top of the hill.

This day they wore their other Latin tee shirts. The back reads, "Sit vis vobiscum" - May the Force be with you!

This cathedral had two features I wanted the students to see--a copy of the Ghiberti Gates of Paradise doors, just behind the students...

and a replica of the Chartres cathedral labyrinth. 

Before coming here I gave each student an architectural vocabulary word, like 'ambulatory,' with the assignment to teach us a little at the structures we visited.

I purposely scheduled our trip so we could hear evensong. We got to sit in the choir seats and sing along with the male choir. It was heavenly! 

We got the van back, just in time to see a few more bay area sights before the light faded. I made sure we got to see the Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park, and then we drove nearby to the Legion of Honor. It's a three-quarter scale version of the one in France.

 We saw some of the outdoor statuary, like El Cid, the medieval Spanish hero

 

 and Joan of Arc!

We saw a few other sites, and then drove home through the night. It was a super fun trip! We had an amazing time walking through these beautiful, historical buildings.

Here's a short clip of evensong. They began singing a song with the tune of a French Folk Song, which our family knows better as Noel Nouvelet.