The Feral Eye

Just a look-back… February in the Rockies.

Back with a round of product shotz for PUMA’s PT3 Ultramagnetic Collection. Designed by Johan Liden.

This Saturday is the next round of PT3. Rude is gonna take the championships!

My lady Emily is the supervisor of education at a preschool in Williamsburg. They happen to subscribe to an educational approach developed in the Northern Italian city of Reggio Emilia. Three weeks ago, Em travelled to Italy on a U.S. study tour in an effort to “learn from the source.” I joined her for a week of Italian exploration following the conference, the following four posts is what happened next.

Our first stop was Rome. The city is massive, in many ways: history, art, archictecture, food, scooters… I just couldn’t get over the fact that people use to go head-to-head with tigers right inside those walls. In two days we could only barely scratch the surface. But we gave it a good effort, and after 15 miles of walking our feet weren’t thankful.

Siena was very relaxed. We only had one day here, but both of us decided we’d be returning for an extended stay after spending about five minutes there. The city is old… narrow cobble-stone streets wind through town and all seem to empty into the central Piazza del Campo, home to a famous and very dangerous horse race each year called the Palio. I would kill to see it, but hear tickets go for more than $1000 euros. I also hear that on race day it can get extremely violent in the Piazza, as each contrada has their own horse in the race and doesn’t look kindly to their compatriots from across the way.

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In Florence, we saw art to blow your mind wide open. Brunelleschi’s dome is one of the more amazing structures I’ve ever seen (though the interior doesn’t compare with the facade) and Michelangelo’s Florentine Pieta is awe inspiring. Our man Simone came through with a contact at the Uffizi gallery so we skipped the 4 hour line and headed straight through to the world’s most complete collection of Renaissance art. Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus was stunning, but that was just the tip of the iceberg… we’re talking Michelangelo to Goya, da Vinci to Rembrandt. Of course, in between all the art, we made time to drink bottles of Montepulciano de Abruzzo and eat enough cured meat to give a triathalete a stroke.