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On our last morning in Bologna yesterday, I rushed over to get a final look at the wonderful Basilica de Sant Steffano and had just a few minutes to do a quick scribble with conté crayons into my A4 brown paper sketchbook.

Home at last and glad to get back to Sparta Puss ….. and our memory foam mattress topper, what a good buy that’s turned out to be. I ended up doing quite a few sketches in Italy, which I will put up tomorrow, here’s one of a rather Byzantine Christ on a church ceiling in Florence. I think it was a baptistry but I’m not sure. I’ll have to go through the itinerary to work out where each sketch was done, I should put it next to the sketch, really, but often forget to. I should also remember to wear my glasses when I’m drawing too, but it’s such a faff when you’re on the go. So the perspective here is a bit skewiff because I was squinting.

Husb and I have moved on to Bologna from Florence, being culture vultures and taking in loads of fabulous places with our guide, Andrew Spira. I stopped to draw this teeny tiny head of a cherub, but had to rush on to discover more exhibits before I could finish it. Still, that’s what a sketchbook is for.

Here’s another drawing from the museum of natural science in Florence, from the exhibition of exquisitely made wax cadavers. They are quite gruesome to draw, partly because they have been given very lifelike glass eyes. This example shows the main veins and arteries.

I’m having a break in Florence for a few days and although I brought my sketchbook with me, I wasn’t planning on doing much drawing unless something really inspired me. It turned out to be a cadaver. Sometimes I worry about me.

We went with our excellent guide, Andrew, to the La Specola Museum of Natural History where they have an extraordinary collection of anatomical models made in wax. They are amazing and, I was going to say lifelike, but I guess they’re deathlike. Drawn with a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen into my A6 Tate Gallery sketchbook.

If you visit Pisa in Italy, my advice is don’t bother with the tipsy tower, too full of tourists, but go instead to the fascinating Museum of Calculation Devices, which displays the history of early calculators and computers. It is awesome.

But avoid the toilets. Easily the worst public toilet I have visited in Europe. Otherwise, so much better than tipsy towers.