Odyssey 2000 Reports

By Larry and Joan Dolinski

ITALY

At Pisa, even more interesting than the fact of the Tower's well known lean, is the enormous multi-year engineering effort now in process to save it from toppling. By a combination of temporary measures (counterweights and cables) and some very sophisticated drilling strategies (removing material from the subsoil on the high side and pumping some stabilizing materials into the subsoil on the low side), they are slowly bringing the tower back from the verge of the toppling point. To perpetuate tourist interest, they will not straighten the Tower entirely, merely, return it to the same degree of lean it had at the time it was completed.

Then, just prior to completing our three eventful weeks in Italy, came one of the most pleasurable of all our adventures to date. The area is called Cinque Terre. It is comprised of five coastal villages, nearly inaccessible by car, tucked into the rugged coast and connected by walking paths along he ocean. The walking times between the villages vary between 1/2 hour and three hours, and the paths vary from easy and smooth to narrow, steep and difficult. We spent the entire day walking between (and exploring) the villages and were thrilled to have such an intimate "stroll" along the Mediterranean. All of us were of the feeling that our walk was unsurpassed by any other walk in our experience.

An aside...

Now that we have communed with the antiquities of Greece & Italy we can relate the subtle connection between horses asses and our modern space program. The chain of circumstances goes like this:

The dimensions of the Atlas booster rocket were governed by the width of railroad tunnels, which were dictated by the standard gage of railroad tracks, which were sized by the wheel span established by wagon makers. These dimensions evolved from the wheel span of ancient chariots, which were established to conform to the maximum width (at their rumps) between 2 horses standing side by side... (:-).

Continued on Update #16