Tag Archive for italy

Come study with me in Assisi!

I know you all want to come to my writing workshop in Assisi at Art Workshop International and I want you all there! So to that end, please note that the early bird registration discount has been extended until April 20. Take advantage! Come to Italy!

 

 

More Assisi, and a little Bastia

I had the best of intentions of blogging often. I was thinking Ah, I’ll be lounging about, drinking a little cappuccino, laptop on my lap… My tenth year here at Art Workshop International in Assisi and I still haven’t figured it out. Between teaching and hanging with my buddies, between walks and art and my local friends I only see once or twice a year, all that lounging time doesn’t exist.

So here I am, belatedly, back again, with some photos. Most of them are from Assisi, though we took a little trip — and I mean little, literally 4 minutes on the train (though of course you have to walk down to Santa Maria degli Angeli to get the train, and then wait for the train, so from the hotel the trip is about an hour and 4 minutes) — to Bastia, and strolled around.

View from our favorite cafe

 

Breakfast at the Hotel Giotto (plus a little fruit for lunch…)

 

The hard-working guys holding up the rose window at San Rufino

 

Below street-level plantings. Don’t show this to Grow Dammit, he’ll feel insecure.

 

Flower pot on the wall

 

Sunflowers, almost ready for harvest

 

Bastia: the market’s over

 

Bastia: painted wall

 

Filipina nuns in habits and identical straw hats waiting for the bus.

 

Bastia: I don’t think this is the police station any more…

 

…or else some cop has a very green thumb.

 

Dragon sings karaoke

Assisi, Assisi

Arrived at the Hotel Giotto, went to my regular room, unpacked and I already know where everything goes. Charles Kreloff and Bob Hughes had a slice of Pane di San Francesco waiting for me. Went for a walk around town: it’s been beautiful for 1,000 years and it changes but it doesn’t; still beautiful. Herein, the first set of photos. Including food, as requested.

Salad at dinner

Archway

Bootleg photo in the Basilica (no photos allowed!)

Basilica door detail

Outside my room, dawn

The Pope’s Dining Room in the Basilica. For nine hundred years, when a Pope visits Assisi, this is where they feed him.

Interior garden at the Basilica

Lemon and sage ravioli (SO yummy)

We visit the Basilica at night

Walkway

 

Home again, home again

Which does not mean I’ll stop posting the Italy photos and stories. Ironically, now that I’m back at my desk I have more time to do that. (Don’t tell my agent.) This is me discovering a fresco in Florence, with St. Sebastian locked behind glass behind me. Photo by Jonathan Santlofer. I think it’s kinda great.

 

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A day in Florence

The rest of the photos are on the camera and so have yo be downloaded, but this was on Jonathan Santlofer’s phone so here it is. After a hot and hectic day, we chillaxed in a sidewalk cafe that was, actually, in the street.

 

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Portrait of Alessandro

Well, you asked.

 

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No kind of porn, but here it is anyway

Me and Barb Shoup, one of the other writing teachers, enjoying an afternoon cappuccino in the Comune.

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Landscape porn

I know you asked for food and art, but a storm came in last night and left this morning, and I thought you’d want to see it.

 

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Storm comes in last night.

 

 

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After the storm, early this morning.

Food porn #2, plus

Yesterday I posted one of the sketches I did in drawing class and got this response: “Post more food pix!” Sic transit gloria. Here’s last night’s primo, which was vegetable lasagna, plus some foliage near the dining terrace and a sunset with backlit pigeons.

 

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Art class

Because, I guess, anything is better than the US political situation right now, some folks have asked for more of the sketches I’m doing in Jonathan Santlofer’s art class. Okay, to distract you, here comes one. We don’t have a nude model here, by the way, so does anyone have Melania’s number?

 

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