Category: photography

I am: blue glow-stick guy

I am: blue glowstick guy

Seen at the Hybrid DJ set at Revolution, downtown Ft Lauderdale.

Honeymoon photos – Venice, Bologna, Perugia

This last post regarding the honeymoon covers the couple of days we spent in Venice, and the subsequent drive down to Perugia via Bologna.

We found Venice to be amazing, and loved wandering around the maze of buildings and water, not really caring when a dead-end was encountered. One of the very first things we checked off the list of things-to-do was a gondola ride:

Gondola ride

Gondola ride

We discovered early on that the quality of the food was inversely proportional to the view offered, so a view for lunch like the one below resulted in pretty terrible food.

Taxi boat

Wandering around the streets, we came across some pretty amazing things, like this outdoor classical music performance.

Outdoor performance

While the first day was spent walking around getting lost in backstreets, the second was spent navigating the ferry system and hopping from island to island. We visited Murano to see the glassmakers. The following video shows how a glass horse is made.

Pink glass lamps were everywhere.

Pink glass

We explored Murano, visited Lido (and bumped into some friends while there, which floored me at the time), and took a night stroll around Venice where I got the opportunity for some night shots, like this one:

Night view

We then drove down to Bologna and had a fantastic lunch, spending some time admiring the medieval architecture. We spent that night in Perugia (Baci chocolate!) and the next day encountered some sort of Catholic procession moving through the town square. Notable about this was the large Jesus-figure made out of sand and rose petals:

Perugia procession

We finally made our way back to Rome for our flight back to the US. We were exhausted at the end, but it was such a fantastic trip and have many memories from it, and again we thank everyone who contributed towards it.

There are a bunch more photos that I couldn’t include here, this would have been a massive post if I tried to. The flickr link for the set is here.

Honeymoon photos – Pisa, Milan, Lake Como, Verona

The hire car (a Fiat Punto) really got a work-out on this stretch of the trip. Driving from Florence we arrived in Pisa, walked to the Leaning Tower and saw this:

People posing in Pisa

Now, I get enough of that sort of stuff with Wii Fit at home, so Adriana and I got a very creative photo taken, and I think you’ll agree:

Leaning tower of Pisa

After Pisa we drove north to Cinqueterre, which I’ve already posted about. We must have driven through about thirty tunnels on the way there, and it was great how they indicated the length of each tunnel before you entered it. It gave you an idea of whether you should try holding your breath or not. Also, although the countryside may be scenic and the weather near perfect, try to avoid driving with the windows down. A small wasp could get sucked into the car, get caught in the back of your shirt, and then sting you, which can be quite fun if you’re driving. Just saying.

After Cinqueterre we continued driving north to Milan, where we arrived at our really nice West Elm-like hotel, “The Hub”.

The Hub hotel, Milan

In Milan we got to see ‘The Last Supper’, though unfortunately you aren’t allowed to take photos of it. Some people did put a door through it at some stage though, so Jesus’ feet are cut off, something I only learned about on the day.

A day trip was planned to the Lake Como area and this, along with Civita, turned out to be another highlight of our trip. It was simply amazing. I somehow navigated the car through narrow roads up to Menaggio where we had a scenic lunch.

Lake Como - Menaggio

Ferries transport you between the three lakeside towns of Menaggio, Bellagio and Varenna:


View Larger Map

So we left Menaggio:

Ferry view of Menaggio

visited Varenna:

Varenna

and then headed to Bellagio:

Bellagio, Lake Como

before heading back to Milan. On the next day we started our drive East to Venice, and stopped off in Verona where we saw Juliet’s house, a small Colosseum, and a nice view over the river:

Adige river, Verona

Click here for a link to the set on Flickr.

Honeymoon photos – Cinqueterre

About an hour’s drive north of Pisa is Cinqueterre, or “The five lands”. This national park protected area consists of five ‘preserved’ towns situated along the west coast: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso al Mare. All are connected by train and walking paths (you can walk between all of them in a day), and most are connected by water ferry.

We spent two nights in the area, giving us a whole day to explore the towns, starting with Monterosso al Mare:

Monteresso al Mare

Departing Monteresso al Mare

We caught a water ferry to the next town, Manarola:

Vernazza

We caught a train, which turned out to be express to the town we planned on visiting last, Riomaggiore. Oh well!

Riomaggiore

We walked from Riomaggiore to Manarola, along a path known as “Via dell’Amore”, or the “path of love”.

Via dell'Amore

The “thing” to do along this path was bring a lock and lock it into the fence or… anywhere you possibly could.

Via dell'Amore

We had a pesto-filled lunch in Manarola, and Adriana made friends with a group of pensioners.

Manarola

We caught a train to the last town, Corneglia, which is the only town that was not situated on the edge of the water, but rather up on a hill. While there we sampled and purchased some of the sweet dessert wine “Sciacchetrà” and I got my bottle of regional dry white wine.

Corniglia

After this trip, we continued to head up north to Milan. That (and photos from Pisa, by the way) are for a separate post.

You can see the whole set for Cinqueterre here.