That’s not the Middle East.
No, I left behind the desert and went to Italy for a week. Besides a lot of pasta, a lot of gelato and a lot of walking, there aren’t loads of details, just pictures. Here are some from Rome:
Romulus and Remus and their she-wolf Momma
This Bernini bust of Medusa is considered not his best work. But they’re fixing her up anyways.
I always thought this was in Greece. Turns out it’s not.
The Marcus Aurelius statue in the Capitoline Museum. That’s my travel pal, Phil, gawking.
Typical Rome.
Typical gelateria.
The Colloseum.
Trevi Fountain.
“What is that smell?”
The Appian Way was the road leading out of ancient Rome, along which wealthy Romans built their mausoleums.
Here’s me trying to recreate one of those 17th century paintings where aristocrats would dress up as peasants and pose in pastoral settings, reading, playing cards, or being awoken by rosy-cheeked shepherd boys. You know, how peasants lived.
Some from Vatican City, which sort of counts as its own country, seeing as they have their own postal service:
Cherubambino.
Nothing wrong with a little holy wine. Me, with the wine-in-a-box you can buy at the Vatican cafeteria, and Bacchus, in the Vatican Museum.
The popes have been hoarding art for centuries now, and just pack the halls full.
Catholic kitsch? You’re in the right place.
Vatican City by night, over the Tiber River.
A Moroccan man was running the hostel where we stayed in Florence. When I heard him counting out my change in Arabic I started talking to him a bit. (I'm relieved to find I can communicate with dialects other than Jerusalem's.) “I knew you were Arab!” he said triumphantly. “I could tell from your eyes!” Here are a couple from Florence:
Here's a security guard locking up Lorenzo Ghiberti's doors to the Florence Baptistry.
The Arno River, which flows through E.M. Forster’s novel A Room with a View. A recommended read.
And finally:
Weird, right? The uncanny resemblance between this Velasquez portrait in the Vatican Museum and former Backstreet Boy Kevin Richardson.
