Marty’s photo of the day #3102: When Deb and I were in Spain and France, working on my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents, we had great luck finding walled cities and old abandoned castles that we could get inside to explore with no other humans in sight. When we were in Italy last December, we didn’t have as much luck.

This is the Rocca Borromeo di Angera (Borromeo Castle) in Angera, Italy. The 12th century castle was locked up tight, except for some workers inside doing restoration. We rang the bell, hoping I could use my “I’m an author” credentials to talk our way inside. When no one answered, we walked around the outside and found our way to this spot. Obviously, there was only one way we could get inside: “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!”