his cab and looks out over the front of the locomotive which is actual- ly a lounge car with a glass paneled bullet shaped front. The deisels are in cars 2 and 3. So I sat right at the point of the train and watched the rails disappear beneath the car. Kind of spooky to approach a tunnel at 80 miles an hour and bam! Its dark as pitch and the engineer doesn't turn on his headlight so you just barrel through the ink in the hope that there will be an end to it but not being certain. Fortunately there was or I wouldn't be writing this. This afternoon Dick and I took a walk- ing tour of old Florence ourselves and over to the famous Ponte Vec- chio covered bridge which is nothing but jewelry shops from one end to the other. All over town the stores show a high water mark 6 or 7 feet above the pavement as a result of the flood of 1967 which we all read about. How they could dig all that mud out and where they put it re- mains a mystery to me.

July 11. In the morning took a bus tour of the famous spots in Flo- rence like the Pitti Palace of the Medicis and saw the famous golden Paradise doors of Ghiberti at the Cathedral etc. In the afternoon drove to Pisa to see if the famous tower had straightened up yet but it was as cockeyed as ever. Modern physics got its start here in Pisa when Gali- leo dropped objects from the tower and learned about acceleration of gravity etc. In the nearby cathedral we saw the chandelier, the sway- ing of which after an earthquake and in comparison to a much shorter one nearby led him to deduce the laws of the pendulum and provided the basis for the laws of motion more formally stated by Newton. This was about 10 days before the moonshot and the guide pointed out that "you Americans are making the shot but don't forget it all started here" pointing to the chandelier.

July 12 and 13. Another train ride to Venice. We took a water taxi from the station to our hotel which was on one of the islands and we wound in and out of big and little canals to the nearest stop. After getting settled we set out to "case" the city. It is very easy to get lost even when one has a map as the "streets" are often narrow enough to touch both sides and they have all kinds of sudden turns and every turn means a new name which half the time you can't find on the walls. I found a fruit stand with big luscious blue figs and had to buy a half dozen and just eat them as I went along. A rather American thing to do but they were wonderful. Venice is one of the worlds biggest tourist traps. 85% of the shops are either selling the "famous" Venetian red glass (Marano glass), linens, gloves, or jewelry or are spaghetti or pizza joints. Literally I've never seen so many necklaces in my life and if I

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