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Tuesday morning, 10/12. On-board train from Venezia to Milano. Arrived noon, then caught train to Mendrisio, where I did presentation at the school of architecture, “60 Years of Natural Building.”
Train station such a relief after airports. Way less stress.
Trains leave right from the edge of Venezia’s Canal Grande.
Train pulled out, on the dot.
The last time I was in Milano was 1957, buying a new Lambretta motor scooter for what turned out to a 3- month, 10,000 mile trip youth-hosteling it through Europe.
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The Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Flora in Florence. I hadn’t realized it was faced with slabs of green and pink marble!
20 euros to walk up the 463 stone steps in Brunelleschi’s dome (duomo).
I bought a book, Brunelleschi’s Dome by Ross King, to read later, detailing his ingenious engineering; check it out on Wikipedia, which has a great account.
The fresco, painted in the 1500s, depicts the Last Judgment and includes themes from Dante’s Divine Comedy, with sinners at the bottom going through the agonies of purgatory, which, according to Catholic dogma is necessary to enter heaven. Well, whatever…
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There is a wonderful exhibition of wood-framed buildings at the American pavilion of the Architecture Biennale in Venice, with a large pavilion and a bunch of exquisite models.
There’s a good writeup at designboom.
Read the text on the importance and uniqueness of stud framing in America. Click on appropriate subjects.
The curators of this unique exhibit were Paul Andersen and Paul Preissner. The scale models were researched and designed by students at the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois College in Chicago. Now there’s an architecture school I would check out if I were a student!
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Maybe 100 kilometers north of Naples. I’m thinking of going all the way to Sicily (in my rented Fiat Panda Hybrid (a “mild” hybrid), nice little car.
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Each night, the street vendors pack up their stalls and wheel them to storage yards until the next day.
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Florence — my first night here. Wow!
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Dinner in Mendrisio with Leopold and friends after my talk on the 13th.
This was buckwheat polenta which the waiter loaded on each of our plates and then brought out steaming bowls of venison, rabbit, porcini, and sausage, big bottle of house red Chianti.
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Lukas and I were having cappuccinos and croissants just now in the morning sun at a cafe near the Arsenale and talking about running.
I was telling him about Jeff Galloway, the author of our book Galloway’s Book on Running and Jeff’s “run walk run” method of training when this man, who had overheard me, came over and told us that he and some of his friends had used Jeff’s method to run three marathons in a year. In Italy.
Small world!
