Padua/Padova

Again, the places I expect the least from always impress. I went to Padua to visit the Scrovegni Chapel because I somehow missed it two years ago. I allowed myself a few hours in town before catching a speeding train back to Milan to return to school. The Chapel is well worth the trouble of a reservation, arriving early, sitting in a pre-visit chamber all to stand for fifteen minutes in the middle of a chapel covered entirely by frescoes completed seven hundred years ago. I don't have any photos because 1)you can find photos online and 2) the photos always look too small. It was amazing.

The chapel is in the middle of the former Roman Forum, ye olde center of town, which is now a public garden. Padua is built on layers and layers of time. They even seem to stack up the plants. Spring is very kind here when it is not raining.

There is also a sculpture garden, which, echoing the theme of the city, piles old and new all together in haphazard harmony. I don't know why it works. But the 1960's style office buildings and old venetian style houses stacked up together made for a nice afternoon of walking the wrong way over and over.

More Walking

Few words tonight. A rare occasion. So enjoy these weird things I saw on my Easter evening walk in Milan.

Late Night Paper Shop

I said "I'll go home by eight." but then I was in the print studio prepping for an extra hour. So ten sounded reasonable. Can still get enough sleep. And I didn't have a proper dinner with me. Only some decaf espresso because the real stuff is just making me impossible to talk to and yet, still tired.



Now it is one thirty a.m. I need to go to sleep but I thought I would share with you these hot air balloon previews, with the handmade paper still drying on them.



And these are for the next two--a lovely orange made with an old linen blanket and some crazy sharp grassy plant from my driveway, mixed with abaca for strength.
Sleepytime now!