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I had intended to use today’s post to talk about yesterday’s sessions here in Aosta, but it’s going on midnight here, and tomorrow will clearly not afford any opportunities to write. Tuesday turns out to be our sightseeing day. We leave the hotel at 9:00 and head for Verrès, where we visit the Mechatronics Laboratory of the Politecnico di Torino. Then we head up into the mountains, visiting the Bard fortress, with individual visits to the Museum of the Alps. After lunch at what is said to be an excellent restaurant called La Polveriera, we go to an exhibition called ‘Verso l’alto, l’ascesa come esperienza del sacro’ — Towards the heights: The ascent as experience of the sacred. Then to dinner at the Hotel Notre Maison, where we are promised traditional Aosta Valley food.

Image: The Aosta town hall, where our opening sessions were held. Later, we moved to the Hotel Europe.

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As for tomorrow, we don’t get back to the hotel until midnight. No more today or I’ll be late for the bus, but I’ll hope to get more posted on Wednesday, when we return to our scientific schedule. Until then, imagine me bumping up narrow mountain roads looking at Alpine scenery in a bus stuffed with space scientists!

Image: A motley crew. From left to right, Giovanni Vulpetti, Claudio Maccone, Greg Matloff, Les Johnson, as we stood outside the hotel waiting for last night’s banquet to begin. If these guys can’t get us into deep space, nobody can.