Velkomin til Íslands (Welcome to Iceland)

We're settling into our new post, Reykjavík, Iceland. Best thing so far: our view. Here is the sunset on Aug. 21, taken from our living room.

On the far right, you can catch a glimpse of the luxurious yacht, Octopus, owned by billionaire Paul Allen. It went away for a few days, but now it's back. Perhaps it took a trip over to the West fjords? Or Greenland? Another great thing: festivals galore! We skipped the Bacon Festival yesterday in favor of the Melodica Acoustic Festival. Saw some great performers, including Rob Maddison of Spaceships are Cool and Hjalti Þorkelsson of Múgsefjun. The Melodica Festival continues today. Maybe we'll get a chance to hear some more good live music.

Infiorata di Genzano

I interrupt our road trip chronicle to report on yesterday's Infiorata di Genzano. It's a festival that involves the creation of elaborate designs made of flower petals laid on the main cobblestone street of Genzano, a town south of Rome.

The townspeople create tappeti (carpets) with gazillions of different colored flower petals, sand, dirt, leaves and other plant matter.

Each year there is a theme. This year's theme is Caravaggio, 2010 being the 400th anniversary of the artist's death. This tappeto reproduces part of a Caravaggio painting.

Many, many of these boxes full of flower petals were put to use.

Here's a reproduction of Caravaggio's "Head of Medusa," which we saw last year in a museum in Florence. Gory!

The Caravaggios were interspersed with other designs such as this one:

The blue and bright green parts of the eye design below are made from colored rice.

The street is on a hill. Here's a view looking part way up.

The view from the top was so colorful. So many flowers!

This banner spells out the event: Infiorata 2010.

Here's a closeup. Does it remind anyone else of a Mark Rothko painting?