Grazie and prego....

One could travel from one end of Italy to the other with these two words....this is the last day of the conference, which has been both exhausting and exhilarating. We started yesterday morning at 7:25am and got back to the hotel after proceedings, reception and dinner, about 10pm last night. We are several hours into today's proceedings, and everyone has agreed that more caffeine is needed to continue. We will be here until around 7pm, later today determining if there are formal recommendations we wish to come out of the conference. This year the conference participants are primarily American or British, with a few Europeans thrown in. Next year, it is to be hoped that the gathering will be more multinational.

Strolling the grounds at lunchtime will be the extent of my walking today. Tomorrow afternoon, we start our journey home. We fly from here to Frankfurt, then board a plane for San Francisco, where we will sleep on Saturday evening US time, then fly on home early on Sunday morning.

I have made a number of new colleagues and widened the circle of persons with whom such topics can be discussed. And I've improved my walking resiliency at the same time as I've seen beautiful art and architecture from the heart of the Renaissance.

To Italy, I say "grazie" and "ciao!"