John and I took full advantage of our three-day Pentecost weekend by absconding to Trieste, Italy.
Because nothing says "birth of Christianity" like gorging oneself on red wine and pizza!
Trieste falls into the category of somewhat-off-the-beaten-path places where we might not normally visit, except that John is a physicist, and as it turns out, physicists like to hold meetings in unexpected locations.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not complaining.
At least not about the meetings in unexpected locations.
We've very happily taken the Good Ship Physics Conference to India and to Capetown, for example, and it's also inspired our recent travel to Lodz and Stockholm.
I can't say with absolute certainty that we would not have planned a vacation in Lodz without a physics conference to lure us there, but it is definitely within the realm of possibility.
Lodz is a really interesting city and I'm glad I spent time there, but as a phrase, vacation in Lodz doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
In some ways, Trieste is in a similar category.
Lovely? Yes.
Interesting? Largely.
Popular with the tourists? Not counting the hordes of Austrians who blaze through Slovenia to don Speedos in the Adriatic, I mean?
Not so much.
Again, I'm not complaining.
Trieste is the kind of place, for example, where one can buy 1985-era postcards that have actually been for sale since 1985.
I love that.
Another thing I love?
There's a glorious what-I-think-of-as-1950s-Italian aesthetic to many of the streetcars and buildings and signs and fonts.
Last but not least: when it comes to block letters floating in space, resistance for me is absolutely futile.
Trieste is full of them.
I love them even more than I love anachronistic postcards.
Which is saying a lot.
