The Vatican

I finally got my Rome pictures finished.

Venice, Italy

 

   

Venice definitely was a big tourist town with LOTS of people. There were tourists crowding up the main attractions like the Rialto Bridge, the Dumo and St. Mark's Square. 

We had a lot of fun walking around the other parts of the island that weren't crowded. 

It was an amazing city, and bigger than I imagined too.  

We walked around a lot and just explored. 

 

I like this picture a lot.

 

We didn't ride in a gondola and no regrets. 

100 Euros for an hour!

 

There was a lot of Murano glass everywhere. 

Tons of shops with anything you can imagine made out of glass.

 

 

Positano Pizzeria. 

By far, the BEST pizza of our trip.

Oh, it was soooo good.

San Marco, The Duomo of Venice

This is a detail of the duomo (on top above the door).
The winged lion is the symbol of Venice and is found all over the city.

This is me relaxing. We did a lot of walking.
This lil piazza was in front of a small church.
 It was a good place to rest and get away from the crowd.
There was no one around.

I don't know what church this is. We were walking and then all the sudden in between the buildings we saw this huge church. It came out of the middle of nowhere. 
It was a gorgeous building.

Cinque Terre, Italy

This was our favorite place that we went.

I've wanted to go here since I was a young girl. Being there was surreal.

Cinque Terre is 5 (cinque) little villages on the northeast coast of Italy. 

The villages is literally built on the cliffs next to the ocean. The ocean water is clean, clear and crystal blue.

Sunset at Manarola. The sunset made the city glow, it was beautiful.

Cinque Terre, Italy 2

In Monterosso, we found this old outdoor theater. I though it would be a great plan to move here and buy it. How awesome would that be! Live in paradise and run a cute theater. 

Ah, one day.

Monterosso seemed like the only village to have an actual beach, with sand. The others just had cliffs and rocks to play on. We swam here. The water was crystal clear.

This is the restaurant that we had lunch at. I loved the decorations. How cute is that?

Poppy Field

Oh, Poppies you are so so pretty & I love you.

These beautiful things just grow wild everywhere in Italy. It was great.

Siena, Italy

We absolutely fell in love with this city. So much culture and tradition. 


One of the things that helped pay for our trip was a grant that I got through BYU.  
Aaron introduced me to his Italian professor who is writing a book about Siena and needed photographs for the book. So she and I wrote up a proposal and got some funding for the project!  It's been great to work with her and learn about the city while photographing it. 
We spent most days in Siena just photographing all the different sites and buildings needed for the project. Aaron was a great photography assistant and we had a lot of fun.




Siena is the city of the famous horse race "the Palio." 
If you haven't heard about it, read here. 
The city is separated into 17 different sections/neighborhoods, called Contrade. These contrade make up the different teams in the race. 

It was beautiful to see how much pride each contrada has, and how all the people have a deep sense of belonging.

We met this man in the little shop that he owns. He sells a lot of different contrade souvenir items (you can see all the different contrade flags that are behind him on the shelves).  The store is in the contrada Bruco- which is the Caterpillar neighborhood.  He told us something really interesting that stuck with us the rest of the trip. He said, 

"If you have a past, you have a future. The longer your past is, the more future you have." 

The contrada of Bruco was founded by his ancestors long ago in the 14th Century, and is a strong tradition in his life today.

This is the Piazza del Campo, where the race is held each year. 

It is the city's main square. 

We went on top of a fort to get this great view, and it started raining! I got so sad, because I was hoping to get some great photos. It only rained for a couple minutes, and then this happened. 

It was stunning. 

The overcast clouds creating such beautiful lighting.

And then...

a rainbow appeared and landed right at the Duomo! How perfect.

This is the Duomo (Cathedral) of Siena.
Here you can see the front with the facade, and then below is a side view.

The baptistry and the inside of the nave.

This is the detail of the inside of the dome.

I have TONS of pictures of Siena, so more to come soon!