2008 October

portraits of people

October 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment

To wrap up Italy, I thought I would share a series of portraits of some of the people we met and came across while traveling. I must say that native Italians are every bit as warm hearted, caring and kind as I imagined them to be. To me, this is why traveling is so important – it’s the people you meet and interact with. You begin to realize that we all really aren’t that different from one another.

Stay tuned because it’s back to “sneek peeks”, I have a lot of shoots to post!! It’s been a crazy couple of weeks since we got back and I have lots to post!! Have a great Friday!!

Filed Under: My Life, Photography, Portrait Tagged With: Italy, People, Portraits, Vacation

Rome Part III

October 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Picking up from yesterday with Rome, after we had lunch our next stop was the Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica. I know I mentioned in my first post after returning from our trip how special the Vatican was to the both of us. It really was a dream come true to be there and see the beauty of this awe inspiring place for ourselves. St Peter’s Basilica is the most grand and the biggest church on the face of this earth. To walk inside and see the grandoise of it, you cannot even put into words, you literally need to see it for yourselves. The pictures don’t do it justice…this is also the burial place of St. Peter who was one of the 12 apostles of Jesus. Catholic tradition says that St. Peter’s tomb is below the alter of the Basilica, for this reason many Catholic popes starting with the first ones have been buried here as well. In fact, we saw two popes that actually are entombed above the ground and you can walk by them and literally see them lying there in their restful state. There is nothing covering their faces so you can actually see them, it’s a little surreal. One of the popes we saw was Pope John XXIII who is buried under the Alter of St. Jerome.

In this picture on the left, the huge bronze arch – below that is where St. Peter is buried. On the right is one of the Vatican Guards. Wow, they don’t crack a smile, they don’t even move.

Below to the left is a picture of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica and the right is the beautiful light that was streaming through the Basilica.

Famous Vatican Square below, St Peter’s Basilica is the big building straight in front of the camera.

I love these two pictures below, the sun setting over St Peter’s and children chasing the pigeons in the square. To sum up this day in Rome is difficult for me, I can’t describe the experience because it just exceeded all my expectations, the Vatican was everything I thought it would be and so much more…it’s an experience I will never forget and one I feel very blessed to have shared with Mike.

Filed Under: My Life, Photography Tagged With: Rome, St Peters Basilica, Tours, Vatican

Rome Part II

October 15, 2008 | 1 Comment

I think Rome might have to be broken up in 3 or 4 posts…whew! So after exploring Rome on our own the first day we were there, the next morning we woke up bright and early and met our tour guide at our hotel. If you go to Rome I would HIGHLY recommend hiring a tour guide to take you to the sites. If you never hire a tour guide the entire time your in Italy – do it in Rome!! The guide we hired came from vatican tours. She was excellent, she spoke 4 languages, has a doctrate degree in Roman Christianity and was an archaelogoist. She knew her stuff inside and out. There wasn’t one question we couldn’t ask her that she didn’t know. Basically she was a private tour guide, she picked us up at our hotel and took us to all the major sites that we wanted to see in Rome, it was just the three of us from about 9 am in the morning till about 5pm that day!!

We started out by going to the catacombs which are ancient underground cemeteries. The catacomb that she took us to is not frequented by tours all that much. (Another plus of hiring a guide) We get out of the taxi and knock on this big wood door about 12 feet tall and the door sqeaks open and a little nun opens it and peeks her head around the corner and starts talking Italian to our tour guide. I felt like I was in the movies, she proceeds to let us in and tells us that we are the only ones today. Basically, this catacomb is underground this monastery for these nuns. Our tour guide proceeds to take us down two flights of richety old stairs where we are surrounded by graves that are built 10 high, one after another these graves are just stacked on top of each other. Our catacomb was two stories deep, we didn’t even go down to the 2nd story because there was no electricity or lights. People who go down there need flashlights. Let me just say that this was the eeriest place I have ever been in my life. I touched 1500 year old bones that were in there and saw infant caskets lined up 10 deep on top of each other and literally stood 2 feet away from the first recorded drawing of The Virgin Mary and Jesus that has ever been found on earth. This catacomb was built in the second century and still has never fully been excavated. To give you an idea how big this place was, it held 20,000 – 30,000 bodies at one time. What I found most interesting about these burials is these people were so small back then, men were on average 5’0 to 5’2 in height and women were smaller then that so you can imagine how small these caskets were. Unfortuntely, I don’t have any pictures of the catacombs because we were forbidden to take any photographs since this is a place of worship and should be respected as such.

After leaving the catacomb’s we then went to The Pantheon which means “Temple of All Gods”. They say this building is perhaps the best preserved building in all of Italy and perhaps in the world. Since the 7th century the Pantheon has been used as a Catholic church. We walked in and it was just stunning. There is a huge hole or oculus in the ceiling. It’s open to the sky and when it rains it rains in the Pantheon literally. What is even more amazing is when they built this they did this on purpose and built the foundation so that when it rained the floor is built at a slant so that the water will actually drain out. Genius!

The outside of the Pantheon:

The “Oculus” or “Eye” as it’s known.

After leaving The Pantheon, we then went to The Roman Forums.

After leaving the Forums we went to The Colosseum. Built in the year 70 and finished in 78 – 80, this massive feat was accomplished in just 8-10 short years. Back in those days that is amazing, one of the reasons they were able to build this so fast was because they had 10,000 workers on it every day! Imagine that! This held 50,000 spectators and was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles.

After leaving The Colosseum, it was time for lunch!! We walked to a quaint street to have lunch and she said “I’m going to leave you guys here and have lunch by yourselves and by the way, this is the same street that Julius Caesar was born on and grew up on during his childhood.” Wow! So we sat and had lunch outside on this back alley street and talked about all we had seen that morning..knowing that we still had the rest of the afternoon to look forward to. As we were talking school had been let out and all these high school students started walking by so I grabbed my camera quickly. I wanted to show their movement in this picture…

Filed Under: Landscape, My Life, Photography Tagged With: Pantheon, Roman Forums, Rome, The Colosseum, The Pantheon, Vatican Tours

Rome: Part I

October 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Our next stop after leaving Sorrento was Rome. Rome is about a 2 1/2 hour train ride from Sorrento as long as you take the high speed train otherwise on one of the regular trains it’s about 4 hours. I wish we would of been able to stay longer in Rome. We really only had a day in half there which wasn’t a lot of time to explore everything Rome has to offer. We stayed at the Grand Marriott while in Rome and it was simply stunning. The Marriott is on a road called the Via Vittorio Veneto which is this road lined with other amazing hotels and cafes and some very nice shopping. One of the taxi drivers had said this road was “the place to be” back in the 1960′s and 1970′s. I think we still thought it was the “place to be!” =) I have never seen anything like it. Once we checked in Mike and I explored the town on our own the rest of the afternoon. What was really nice about staying on the Via Vittorio Veneto was that we were able to walk to all of these places that we went to on this day: We walked to the most famous shopping district in all of Italy, went and sat at Italy’s most famous fountain – The Trevi Fountain and threw a coin over our right shoulder. The picture below doesn’t do it justice, the fountain is huge, it nearly takes up the entire square, there is just enough room for a tiny little road but that is it. Legend has it that you make a wish while throwing the coin over your shoulder into the fountain, but there is only one wish you can make – and that is to return to Rome someday. When we were done making our wishes we sat on the steps and just watched everyone do the same – make their wishes or kiss one another or watch people laughing and children running by. Life sure can be beautiful, can’t it?

The Trevi Fountain:

The picture on the left is one that I love, to me it’s quintessential Italy.

Filed Under: My Life, Photography Tagged With: Rome, Trevi Fountain

Laundry + The Camera

October 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Anyone who has backpacked to another country knows that you have to pack light because all you think about is that you have to carry this big backpack everywhere!! So about 8 days into our trip our clothes were really needing a good washing. =) So while in Sorrento we found a laundromat…and of course I took my camera along. It was pretty funny because it took Mike and I awhile to figure out the directions in Italian!!

Filed Under: My Life, Photography Tagged With: Italy, Sorrento