I spent the Easter weekend in Naples. There’s a longer post coming soon, but for now, here are some macabre-themed photos.

Outside a church in the old town. A little girl with her mother and an aunt stopped to have a look. “Rub it for good luck,” the mother said. The girl gave it a tentative pat, decided it was ok, then grabbed on with both hands. “Be careful, you’ll have too much good luck!” laughed the aunt.

Creeeeeeepy. This was in the courtyard of the monastery of San Martino.

Mosaic at the archeological museum. The craftsmanship on all these ancient mosaics was amazing (most of them were substantially less macabre).

Street art.

Near Nervi, a quartiere of Genova

Last time I was on the Ligurian coast it was August, and stiflingly hot and crowded. Now in February, I’d made a spontaneous day-trip, trying to escape the feeling of claustrophobia I was developing as a result of living inland after growing up in a city known for its sea breezes.

Despite being february, the sun was warm on my face and the breeze was cold, but pleasantly so. I unzipped the collar of my jacket and loosened my scarf. Dark clouds were coming in from the south east however, and the water was turning from blue to green-grey.

The beach itself wasn’t as empty as I’d expected. A mother was reading a picture book to her young daughter. A middle-aged couple wearing ear-muffs walked past me. He wanted to get an icecream, she wasn’t sure. A group of children were skimming stones in the water, and I heard one of them laugh with delight: she had just managed four bounces.

I’m skipping over Austin for the time being and showing some photos from Italy so that I can pretend the blog is vaguely up to date.

This is the view from my apartment window on a Saturday afternoon:

I’m staying in the centre of Florence this time (as opposed to out in the ‘burbs near the Institute) so it’s all narrow streets and stately buildings and a view through to the side of Santa Maria Novella church. Heck yeah, as the Italians wouldn’t say.

My second weekend here I went to Rome:

Oh hey it’s the Colosseum.

I didn’t take many photos in Rome, because I’ve never worked out how to get on camera the sorts of things that stick out to me like the assertiveness you need to cross the road and the rollercoaster ride of friendliness and rudeness you get from staff in touristy areas. But even my cheap-o point and shoot can get a cliche shot of a Really Old Building.

Finally, looking out down the hill from Perugia:

I was in Perugia for only a day, and half of that was visiting a group at the physics department there and giving a talk about some of my research. Unfortunately the physics building there is as ugly as every other physics building in the world — I guess it would be hard to set up modern lab space in some gorgeous medieval castle — but I met some friendly people who clearly enjoyed doing interesting research, so that totally makes up for the 60s architecture. And there was plenty of time afterwards for taking photos like the above.

I have been to Bologna Centrale train station at least a dozen times — it’s a hub for getting from Florence to almost anywhere north of Florence, such as Venice, Padova, Ferrara, Verona, etc etc. However, I’ve never been outside of a 10 minute walk radius of the station, since I’ve always been passing through with perhaps an hour to spare, but no more.

Which is unfortunate really, since the little of Bologna I have seen suggests it’s really nice:

Also, friends who have been there say the food is really good, and I would travel to an ugly concrete box town in the middle of the desert if you could promise me the food was good.

Fortunately for my wish to go to Bologna, I’ll be in Florence again in April, so I think it’s high time I made a Saturday day-trip there.