boot-shaped

But even when I finally did get around to visiting the boot-shaped peninsula after all this time on a recent trip over Christmas, it wasn't until I drove along the Amalfi Coast that I realized what I had been missing.

Gregory Curley: PHOTOS: Eat, Pray, Awesome Along Italy's Amalfi Coast Gregory Curley 2011

What if the boot-and-pole contraption didn't need to wait for signals from a faraway human astronaut at all, but could be programmed to autonomously tap the surface on approach, make and photograph a nice boot-shaped mark, and perhaps even scoop up a sample or two of asteroid dust to send back to Earth in a small capsule?

SETI Institute: Robots vs. Humans: Should we cede solar system exploration to the robots? Do humans have a place beyond low Earth orbit? SETI Institute 2011

Michael Tusk, chef and co-owner of San Francisco restaurant Quince, and its new, Italian-inflected neighbor Cotogna, lives to sample imports from the boot-shaped nation.

Bits & Bites: (Italian) News You Can Eat 2011

But even when I finally did get around to visiting the boot-shaped peninsula after all this time on a recent trip over Christmas, it wasn't until I drove along the Amalfi Coast that I realized what I had been missing.

Gregory Curley: PHOTOS: Eat, Pray, Awesome Along Italy's Amalfi Coast Gregory Curley 2011

It could even collect a sample while making a boot-shaped impression.

SETI Institute: Robots vs. Humans: Should we cede solar system exploration to the robots? Do humans have a place beyond low Earth orbit? SETI Institute 2011

But even when I finally did get around to visiting the boot-shaped peninsula after all this time on a recent trip over Christmas, it wasn't until I drove along the Amalfi Coast that I realized what I had been missing.

Gregory Curley: PHOTOS: Eat, Pray, Awesome Along Italy's Amalfi Coast Gregory Curley 2011

Bent, mangled bikes were strewn about the scene, and the sheet-draped corpses dotted the two-lane road near Lamezia Terme, in the Calabrian "toe" of boot-shaped Italy where the accident occurred.

Police: Stoned Driver Killed 8 Cyclists AP 2010

Bent, mangled bikes were strewn about the scene, and the sheet-draped corpses dotted the two-lane road near Lamezia Terme, in the Calabrian "toe" of boot-shaped Italy where the accident occurred.

Police: Stoned Driver Killed 8 Cyclists AP 2010

A speeding car plowed head-on into a group of cyclists near Lamezia Terme, in the Calabrian " toe " of boot-shaped Italy, killing eight of them.

World Watch 2010

To Lucy's creator, Italy wasn't a boot-shaped landmass so much as a "glorious limb sliding southward between warming seas," as Forster scribbled in his diary.

Gelato for the Soul 2010