A view from atop the mighty walls of Lucca. The walls are nearly 100% intact and enclose the medieval city of Lucca. Not particularly high, they are massive still, average 20-50 yards in width and would have been surrounded by a moat, evidence of which also largely survives.
The above view is from the northwest section of the wall looking in on the enclosed city.
A view from atop one of the tallest remaining towers within the walls of Lucca. The row of dark green tree tops seen just above the rooftops are on the promenade of the walls, which are about 2.5 miles in circumference.
Drawings done with various fountain pens and Pitt Artist Pens on a Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook.
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Three views of the terrific Banana Chocolate Chip coffee cake I enjoyed last Sunday morning at Newport Coffee House. The handiwork of their fine pastry chef Emily Donlon. The one on the left was drawn from life at Newport just before I ate it. The other two were drawn from pics later on. (Pitt Artist Pens on a Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook)
Returned to the imposing Castell Sforzesco in Milan. Part of the fortifications have been removed as have some of the walls surrounding the city, but the principal structure of the fortress remains. The view above, from outside the walls, is from the west of the castle.
View from the moat outside the castle walls by the entrance to the gates of the Torre del Filarete, on the right. 
The moat on the north side facing West/Southwest.
The above 4 images were from the citywide Design Is Milano Is Design festival. These drawing were captured at the Castello Sforzesco with the Milan chapter of the Urban Sketchers. The top image is a paper making demonstration by Fabriano. The green public fountain in the castle courtyard is one of 400 scattered throughout Milan and called Vedevolle or “weeping widows” because they constantly stream water, a feature which prevents bacterial buildup.
III In the back of a Land Rover and crashing up the snaking gravel roads and hair-pin, hair-raising turns of the marble quarries which pockmark the mountains of Carrara, Italy. Humans have been chipping and chopping away at the much treasured white limestone in these mountains for 2,000 years, removing 6% of the inherent prize to date.
The scale of the mining and extraction is difficult to convey in a couple sketches. There are 190 quarries in these mountains. In the drawing above, you can see openings to caves in the mountain, the interiors which can themselves be cavernous. The smallIsh looking shack in the lower right hand is itself a large shed where some of the cutting could take place and is much larger than the large trucks used to haul multi ton loads of marble down the mountains. The pile of rocks along the bottom of the drawing is the edge of a marble gravel road we took to tour the quarries. There is a precipitous drop just on the other side of the gravel pile and more than four hundred yards between that and the cutting shed you see below.
Drawn with various fountain pens, DeArtementis Ink, Pitt Artist Pens, on watercolor paper, Stillman & Birn sketchbooks.