Back home.

As I was walking by the Hugo Boss store in Frankfurt Airport, I saw a tall man with long grey hair holding up a pair of jeans. I immediately said to myself "boy this guy looks like James Cameron!". I wasn't sure and I'm not the type to intrude in other people's private lives, so I moved on.

This morning I checked out recent pictures taken at the Oscars and confirmed that he has indeed been letting his hair grow long. The clincher was a Twitter search which revealed that he arrived in India yesterday. FRA Airport is the primary transfer point for Westerners going to the subcontinent.

My workshop took place at a small conference centre in the countryside outside of Teramo. It's a lovely area with rolling hills and snow-capped mountains.

Now I am back in Rome at a nice, middle-of-nowhere hotel near the airport. Killing time until my 4 AM wake-up call and my flights home through Frankfurt.

Where you want to be when you're the world's richest man and an army of mercenaries would like you to be a bit more generous with your riches.

This afternoon, we took a bus from Rome to the site of our workshop in Teramo, across from the Apennine mountain range. It was a very scenic drive, punctuated by many tunnels (see video #1). East of L'Aquila (site of a major earthquake in 2009), we crossed our longest tunnel yet, 10.3 km, and the view behind us once we got out blew us away.

The sun was right over the tunnel exit so I couldn't photograph the huge mountain above. This one was right next to it and just as big. Immediately after taking this shot, I switched the camera to video (see video #2).

I'll try to snag the front seat once we return to Rome on Tuesday.

...for shooting the roof of the Pantheon.

Our first afternoon in Rome was almost a disaster. It was raining pretty hard and we had to deal with a temporary strike of the metro system. None of us had a bus map and, after a bit of confusion, we finally managed to find a taxi.

I had been to St-Peters Basilica two years ago but this was my first time going up the cupola. Anyone who has ever been up there will attest that the extremely long and narrow stairs are quite an adventure but that the view certainly makes up for it.

Of note, because of the rain I had decided to leave my big DSLR at the hotel and to use only my pocket-size Canon S90. The picture quality wasn't the same but the convenience factor won out.

One last shot from the archives, one of Rome's many beautiful churches.

And that's pretty much it for the archive diving. Starting tonight I'll be returning to Italy to spend 48 hrs in Rome followed by a 2-day workshop in Teramo. My return to Montreal will be short-lived as I have another conference waiting for me in Miami followed by a weekend in South Beach. Finally, Christiane and I will be spending the last two weeks of April in Tokyo.

This should be fun.

Maeght Foundation Modern Art Museum.

A similar sculpture by Giacometti was recently sold for a record $104.3 million.