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Article: Room for the SOUL; Two travelers find serenity and solace in Italy's monastic hostels.(TRAVEL)
- Article from:
- Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
- Article date:
- January 27, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Star Tribune Co. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Richard Sennott; Staff Writer
The room was clean and simple. White-washed stone walls enclosed the essential wooden furniture: a chair, a writing desk, two single beds and a dresser. The view out the window was another matter. My wife Laura and I had a room in the Istituto San Lodovico, a convent in the hill-fortress town of Orvieto in central Italy. Its outer wall was part of the ancient fortifications, hundreds of feet above the valley that was lush with May's greening. The Umbrian countryside - olive groves, pastures, symmetrical rows of cyprus trees - rolled away to the horizon.
That we found this room seemed something of a gift. We had ...