We had a few days in Rome, the eternal city, to explore. We packed so many different things into those few days, it was no wonder we were so tired when we finally got home. One random little highlight in Rome was that our hotel window overlooked Piazza Navona. This was my first time in Rome with a nice view out my hotel window. The funny thing is, I didn’t realize until we got home that I never even took a picture out the window…oh well.
Florence is amazing. This is the heart of the Renaissance and the locals are very proud of their place in history. I think it is just amazing that you can go to Florence and practically turn back time and imagine things the way they were 500 years ago. You can see the work of all the ninja turtles all around. This is one place that always seems to fascinate me.
After our stay in Catania we took a night train to Florence then another down to Siena. I really like it there. It’s cool to see how everything in the city is built with the same burnt siena clay. I think it’s really quite beautiful. It’s also fun to go to the main piazza known as “Il Campo” and imagine the horse races that go on there.
While in Sicily we were able to visit Catania. Another of my favorites. I know, I have a lot of favorites. While there we had a chance to visit both the fish market and open market. We also had a chance to see some people I knew from when I lived there and eat at my favorite pizza place in the world. And the visit to Catania would not have been complete without a Sunday evening stroll down Via Etnea from Villa Bellini to Piazza D’uomo. Just like the locals do every week.
While in Italy we were able to go down to Sicily and visit the beautiful city of Taormina. Over the years this has become among my favorite places in all of Italy. It is an ancient Greek town that was built atop a steep mountain/hill. The views of the sea and Mt Etna are just amazing. Although it was very hazy around Mt Etna the day we were there and we couldn’t see it. But when you look out the other direction you can see the straight of Messina and mainland Italy. I love this city.
The next place where I had to translate was in Saracena. Which happens to be right next to Castrovillari where I lived for a few months. So I was pretty excited to go back to there. It was interesting to see what things had changed and what was still the same. I enjoyed seeing everything there, I just wish I could have gotten a hold of some people I know there to visit.
One of the reasons we went to Italy was so that I could translate for my Mom’s cousin while she researched family history there. One of the places we had to go to for that was the small town of Corletto Perticara. It was a town that is not accustomed to tourists. I guess you could say that it was the real Italy where the old men play scopa in the bars and laundry is hung on a line across an alleyway.
A few weeks ago my wife and I returned home from a trip to Italy. Of course I took all kinds of pictures. It would be way too difficult to cut them down to just a few photos to fit into a blog post. So instead I will be posting the top photos from each city we visited.
Today’s post is all about Pompeii. The ruins there were much bigger than I had anticipated. I don’t know why, I knew they had the whole city preserved. It was fun to walk the ancient streets and see where all the chariots had carved there path in the cobblestone. Yet it was a little creepy at the same time to see skeletons laying around as Mt Vesuvius towered above us.
While in Hawaii I made an effort to take some pictures with a panorama in mind. Each of these images consist of somewhere between 5-12 images stitched together for one long image. Enjoy.
Just to warn you…this video is not for the faint of heart. If you are prone to seizures, I’d reccomend not watching this one. It’s a video of most of the photos taken during my Hawaii trip (not all 772 are in the video). And yes, they are all still photos. There’s no video clips in this.