ugues and Nancy travelled to Italy in search of the unusual. Our 12 day trip allowed us to view catacombs, cemeteries, Danse Macabre, and mummies. We ventured as far north as Merano near the Austrian border, and as far south as Palermo on the island of Sicily, just off the tip of the 'boot'.

taly is famous for its artwork, but art exists that has been largely ignored. Several Danse Macabre wall paintings from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are still extant. To find them, we travelled by car along the narrow twisty roads through the spectacular Italian Alps. It is truly a privileged to have seen three of the old displays, and one modern depiction.

taly is a startlingly modern country, offering high-speed roads in incredible condition, trains that are frequent and run on time, and everyone seems to have a cellphone at his or her ear. But the past is not left behind, it is incorporated into the present. Italians respect their dead, and the process of dying. In this land of religious and famiglia traditions it is understood that there is no present without the past, and there can be no future without memory of both.