layla | Travelogue part 2: Italy

Before moving along to Italy, I should mention one other interesting thing we saw in Germany -- shortly after leaving the Frankfurt airport on our drive to Switzerland and Engelberg, we left the autobahn for a while -- I honestly cannot now remember why, except that we were tired of freeway driving and Orion was intrigued by the landform to our left, a long low hill that we had been paralleling on the freeway. In any case, we saw signs pointing to "Burg Frankenstein" (Castle Frankenstein) and this intrigued us sufficiently to follow the road to a nature park with the castle in the middle of it. Googling it after I got home, I found that this was, indeed, the very castle that inspired Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein.

Castle Frankenstein (which is considerably more impressive than it looks in this picture). It's built on top of a hill with a *very* impressive drop off the sides. Very easy to defend from invaders, you can tell.

In any case, back to Switzerland ... or rather, at this point we were leaving Switzerland for Italy.

We knew we were getting close to Italy when we started seeing little lizards sunning themselves everywhere! It was also becoming very hot and dry. Italy was HOT ... upper 90's (F) most of the time we were there.

Driving in Italy is *horrible*. The rest of Europe was basically just like big-city US only the traffic moves faster -- I was terrified of the whole idea of the German Autobahn, but it turned out to be no different than driving on a freeway at home. Italy, on the other hand ... Orion says that everyone in Italy drives like they just got their drivers' licenses. They're insanely aggressive drivers, tailgate like crazy, pass on curves, and drive about twice as fast as any normal, sensible person would want to go. Their roads also detour around every little farmhouse, so they're shockingly narrow and full of switchbacks. We ended up switching the driving duties frequently in Italy because whichever one of us was driving would quickly get a bad case of road fatigue.

In Bologna, Orion was busy most of the day, so I explored some of the city and/or stayed at the hotel and drew the surrounding countryside. I got some nice drawings of farmhouses and hayfields. Although I carried my sketching supplies everywhere, I really didn't get much drawing done on the rest of the trip.

One of the scientists from Cineca (the Italian computer think-tank that sponsored bringing Orion over as a guest lecturer) escorted us around Bologna one night and took us out to dinner.

This is a huge, 3-story bookstore in Bologna. The building is built on top of ancient Roman ruins, and the floor is made up of squares of transparent glass (you can see them in the picture) through which you can look down 10-20 feet to the ruins of half-excavated Roman houses and roads. It's quite cool, but takes a little getting used to -- you feel as if you're going to fall into it.

Bologna is known for its porticos, or covered walkways. They are actually a way of adding living space without having to build more buildings: the upper story projects over the sidewalk, and thus living rooms are built above the street. The porticos also shield pedestrians from rain and create a pleasant environment for window-shopping.

After leaving Bologna, we had planned to drive to Rome, spend one night there and then drive up to Pisa. However, we hit a horrific traffic jam at Firenze (known in English-speaking countries as Florence ... but I like the Italian name much better), and we left the autostrade (freeway) to detour around it on the country roads. Because of that, and then taking some time to see a little of Firenze, we realized that we wouldn't have enough time in Rome to make it worth it, so instead of driving on down to Rome we cut across to Pisa early.

Detail of a beautiful church in Firenze. Italian architecture was, literally, overwhelming. There were so many gorgeous cathedrals and towers and statues and columns and paintings and so forth that after a while you just couldn't take it all in. I mean, I could probably have spent weeks just looking at and drawing all the incredible detail on this one church.

The place where we stayed the next couple of days was a small-ish town called Empoli, near Pisa. Unlike almost everywhere else we went in Italy, Empoli (at least our part of it) was very new -- we jokingly called it "Italian California" because it looked very much like California: malls, suburban housing developments, and high-rise hotels. Our hotel was incredibly modern-looking, decorated in a black and white, glass-and-metal theme; even the sink in the bathroom was made from one piece of molded glass.

Empoli was located within just a few kilometres of Vinci, the childhood home of (naturally) Leonardo da Vinci. It is a very pretty little town located on a hill and surrounded by olive groves.

Being on a hill, Vinci had a lot of stone stairs and very narrow, windy streets.

And of course we went to Pisa, which is also nearby.

The camera is straight, so you can no doubt guess what *this* is a picture of.

There is very little to see in Pisa other than its infamous tower and the very beautiful (but not very famous) cathedral next to the tower.