6000 words

I'm working again and there is VERY tight internet security where I am, so blogging will be sporadic and probably at strange times (for me) for a while. But, hey, I've still got evenings and weekends, right?

But tonight I am boring and have a headache, so...picture time! This series is from Italy...Milan and Bergamo. FYI, my future travels are not all planned, but will include Berlin, a quick trip to my favorite London, Istanbul and to the US in fall. But for now, back to Italy.

Close up of skulls in an ossuary chapel in Milan. It smelled like dust, candles and, well, desiccated bones in there. I'll never forget the smell. Not bad, not good just....dry. Wierd that I now know what bones smell like. And scary that it was familiar somehow.

There were four corners like this, all made of bones, plus the altar. It went up all the way to the top of the 20 foot walls.

In the canal district of Milan. It used to be kind of like Venice, canals instead of roads, but most of them were paved over. This was one area where the canals remained. I liked the way the people looked in their windows.

Ah, the Duomo in Milan. People are allowed (for a fee) to go up on the roof. Amazing, it was like being on top of a wedding cake.

A cat in Bergamo. It's in a 10th century church yard. It was thundering and raining like mad when I took the picture.
Food window in Bergamo. God the food was amazing. And shops like this were EVERYWHERE. I brought back bags and bags of dried porcini mushrooms. Also I got pasta, polenta, Italian sausages (I just CAN'T get them here and I've missed them something awful), and cheese. I've been an Italian cooking fiend. The dried mushrooms are so flavorful. My Dad told me that when my grandmother went to Italy, she made a big deal of bringing back the same kind of mushrooms, too.....funny how simple things like that are genetic! I wish she was still alive, I'd love to talk to her about all this travel I've been doing and compare notes.