It’s date night with my wife, Robyn, out for sushi and a movie. So, I asked her if she remembered the first cathedral we ever visited together in our travels over the years, because that is what architects talk about.
If you ever get to Paris, put down your glass of wine and hoof it over to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. Ride the metro, hail a cab or build a small jetpack out of fire extinguishers if you need to, but just
A quaint hill town in Italy called Gubbio sports a mystery. Why do many of the ancient houses lining the narrow, twisting streets have two front doors? Not a single double door, mind you, but two sets of doors, side
The island of Le Mont Saint Michel, France, leads the pack of the world’s most picturesque monasteries. I’ll have to add sketching the others to my bucket list. Hmm… never been to Tibet. Can’t Get Enough Monastery Humor… A young monk arrives
You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a street artist in Firenze, Italy. And because of some warp in space-time, both “yes” and “no” mean “si” – and “si” means, “I’ll pay anything you ask, if you would only sketch
I just found one of Robyn’s dusty sketchbooks, long since forgotten in a closet. Here are a couple of her beautiful sketches of St. Malo, France, drawn during our honeymoon to Europe in 1990. Read the story here.
With some credit also due his mother, the Renaissance hill town of Urbino, Italy gave birth to the renowned, Raphael (the painter, not the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle). In homage to both Raphael’s, here are two of my sketches, one
Like pirates, boats and booty? Try Saint Malo – a medieval port town in northern France. Once the smarmy haunt of pirates (but not Johnny Depp, smarmy), there are still masts everywhere (but newer masts, and no sign of Johnny). Robyn and
Despite years of practice, Robyn, Beck and I are not levitating 103 storeys above Chicago (20 feet is about our limit). And, no, our magic carpet didn’t suddenly vanish, either – if I had a magic carpet, I certainly wouldn’t be bragging about it
In Provence, France it’s hard to find a door not worth sketching…