Dear Classical Wisdom,
Thanks for joining us for another postcard from the road. We’ll get to the main event shortly (aka Frida’s Postcard), but just in case you’re new to our burgeoning community, a little background...
We’re an “away schooling” family of three – Anya, who also heads up Classical Wisdom; Frida (8), the co-author of these postcards; and yours truly, who is in charge of spilling coffee on laptops.
Actually, that was a one-time gig, which we executed with aplomb during our very first hours here in Italy. Everyone was exactly as thrilled as you might imagine. (Mercifully, an emergency replacement is currently en route, thanks to inbound family who are due to arrive this weekend.)
Moving swiftly along...
For now, we’re breathing in Italy, a favorite stop on the Grand Tours of yore. There is more to experience, to learn and to discuss than we can pack into the generous spring days before us. And as for the little, tiny, minuscule laptop mishap, we recall Mark Twain’s incomparable words when recounting his own tour in The Innocents Abroad...
“Memories which someday will become all beautiful when the last annoyance that encumbers them shall have faded out of our minds.”
We’re also having a great time compiling the games, in-depth reading material and printable lessons for our Classical Kids Club emails, which we send to members every week. (Thanks to those of you who wrote in with suggestions and videos of your own!)
If you missed last week’s Gladiator Games edition, in which we revisited Rome’s Colosseum, you can unlock all the course material and follow along with our weekly lessons by joining the Classical Kids Club here:
Club members can also post in the comments section and join our growing community. We hope to see you over there!
For now, it’s over to Frida, who (with a little help from dad) has today’s postcard...as well as our first edition of replies!
You see, while Frida loves traveling, she of course misses her friends back home. As such, she LOVED the postcards she has already received (you can see her responses as well). We’ve posted them below! Feel free to send in your own!
A Postcard from Florence, Italy
By Frida Bowman
Welcome to another postcard from our travels. This week, we are in Florence. It is a very famous city that used to be the capital of Italy.
The second I arrived, I felt like this was the coolest place in the world. Plus, when we got to the hotel, lying on the beds were... three, yummy chocolates! I am loving it!
Shortly after we dropped our bags off at the hotel, we went to a museum called the Uffizi. It is a famous museum. If you don’t know it, definitely Google it. It is gigantic. The halls are long and they have stunning murals on the ceilings. I was impressed.
While we were there, I even saw a statue of Marcus Aurelius’s head! He was a very famous emperor and also a philosopher, which was very rare. I decided to sketch him. I’ll show you the picture of him that I sketched:
(And here I want to give a special shout out to the Marcus Aurelius fan club. Thanks for reading!)
Next we went to the Botticelli section and we saw a painting of Venus. There are thousands of copies of this painting, but none of them the artist touched himself, except for the original that we saw. The painting is of a beautiful woman with golden hair covering herself up and standing on a shell. In her case, she was a goddess. There is another woman giving her a cloak to wear.
Afterwards, we went and bought a giant ice-cream. It had melon and mango, which was a great combination because it was quite hot outside.
Next, we saw a humongous church made of marble, which was a really expensive stone at that time. Here is a picture of it:
We will write to you again next week. For now, we have to catch a train back to Tivoli.
Until next time,
Ciao!
Frida
Postcards to Frida (with Responses)
Kids have been writing back to Frida... so we have put their messages (with fake names) as well as Frida’s responses, below. Feel free to write in more letters to Frida! She reads and loves them all :-)
Hi Cool Owly dude! From cool Roxy the Wolf (7 ½, creative, and funny, and 1st grader, and I say “and” a lot) Frida, how is your day? And how was Rome?
Frida: Great! I’m eating a nutella and cookie ice cream now. Rome is amazing! We did lots of cool stuff, like the Colosseum.
Hi Owly & Frida, Like Marcus Aurelius, my name means gold. I am artistic, here is a drawing for you:
Frida: Nice picture!!! I’m also artistic! Thanks for sending it in. Owly will love it.
Hi Owly & Frida!
Hi, how old are you? Both you and Owly. From Snakey – 6 years old (P.S. I love snakes! How many snakes do you guys have there in Italy? It sounds like you are traveling – like you are a military kid.)
Frida: We don’t have any snakes. Today I watched a video about two baby brown snakes that are adorable!! But know what? Owly is only a few weeks old - and I’m just eight.
Hi Frida,
What kind of special treatment did the Roman emperors get at the Colosseum? From, San Antonio (10 years old) in California
Frida: I guess they got snacks and drinks and they sat in box seats on the marble.
Hello Owly & Frida! Do you like Mario? Mario Deluxe? From Box (Age 9)
Frida: Mario? I don’t know Mario, but there is probably someone in Italy called Mario.
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Thanks everyone for writing in! Soo cool to hear from you! Talk to you next week!!!
Postcard from Florence, Italy