What Travel Writing in Italy Taught Me
Days after the spring semester finished, I boarded a plane alongside seventeen other Covenant students for an international May Term in Italy. The class? Nonfiction Travel Writing, taught by our very own Dr. Sarah Huffines and award-winning Christian author Daniel Nayeri. Our goal? Walk sixty miles on an ancient pilgrimage route, experience the Italian countryside and Rome, and write about it.
Week One: Noticing
We spent our first week walking the final stretch of the Via Francigena, an established pilgrimage route that leads directly into St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Each day, we walked about ten miles through fields, orchards, and hill towns. As we shared stories and laughter, we noted sensory observations (the sound of a thunderstorm, the taste of Nutella tart at a cafe) in our travel journals to use for our final essays. I'd been taught to practice noticing in my very first creative writing classroom, but that was entirely different from devoting a week to it under the umbrella pines of the Italian countryside.
Week Two: Pilgrims and Tourists
We reached St. Peter's Basilica exhausted but exhilarated! Walking in as a pilgrim—in the literal footsteps of pilgrims from centuries past—was unforgettable. It felt like the difference between strolling past a painting in a museum and stepping into the painting itself. And after a week of noticing, my reaction to magnificence had changed.
As we spent the week practicing technique and researching independently, I kept feeling a contrast between the writing pilgrim and the filming tourist. Instead of trying to capture everything, I found importance in the small things I could jot down with pencil on paper. Though I probably saw just a quarter of Rome's architectural splendor, this actually freed me to appreciate what I did see within my embodied limits. A Caravaggio painting, not the Colosseum, made it into my final essay.
Week Three: Weaving It All Together
After a free weekend, our class reconvened for a writer's retreat near Orvieto. Secluded in a 15th-century castle nestled among the wooded hills, we made tiramisu with Professor Nayeri and worked on our final travel writing pieces. Then, on our last day at the castle, every student read part of their essay for the whole class. Tile fragments scattered across the trail, a carving in Saint Paul's prison, a random purple cloud—it was beautiful to see how each of us had traced a different story in our shared pilgrimage.
Ultimately, I'm glad I chose this Covenant May Term because it taught me that loving a place includes loving its details. And writing—writing often, observantly, and sometimes poorly to get our thoughts out—is key to becoming grateful, curious people who love the places God calls us to on the pilgrimage of life.
Learn more about study abroad programs here: Study Abroad | Covenant College