Day 30 - Le Bignele

Both Mr and I love wine, so of course we couldn't resist going to a vineyard while we were in Italy. After doing a bit of research we visited the highly recommended Le Bignele. We were not disappointed. The people here really know their business and they're very used to visitors. They were very welcoming and professional. We got a great tour and the wine was excellent. I highly recommend going here.

So, today is the last day of the challenge. I've had a great time. It has felt so good to finally have gotten around to processing some of those photos I've been saving in my shoebox and, as always, I really enjoy chatting with the other participants, and getting inspired by their works. A huge thank you to all of you who have commented on my pictures and shared this experience with me. You are a talented bunch and you all rock! Now for the finals! May the best person win, I'm rooting for you guys :D

/MrsHjort

Day 29 - City Vista

I am sure there are a million pictures from this vantage point, but wow, with this view, how could there not be? Verona is such a beautiful subject, who could resist it? Not me! I must have shot a hundred pictures from up here. Experimenting with composition is a lot of fun with a cityscape like this - that provides both interesting buildings, and beautiful natural elements.

This is my favorite out of all the shots I got from up here. I love how the river mixes things up a bit and I like the placements of the key features. It was fairly easy to edit too. The thing I spent the most time on was the sky. A grayish hazy sky was just not going to cut it, so I had to tweak it bit. I hope you like it.

/MrsHjort

Day 28 - Calm Alley

Like I said yesterday, I love cities that are not crowded. Part of why Verona is so nice and calm is Italy's policy about cars in the city core. You see, there are certain traffic zones where going through in a car without a permit will give you a fine. Love it or hate it, it has the wonderful effect of calmer city centers. It's lovely to be able to walk around without having to watch out for cars, and the almost nonexistent traffic means people can walk anywhere they please - so there's a lot more space for pedestrians! At the right place, this is a great idea, and I would welcome a solution like that in some places in Sweden, provided that traffic doesn't get clogged up at other places as a consequence of course - that's what would happen in my hometown, our city has grown too fast for its road network. Anyway, it seemed to work really well in Italy. Just don't go there without doing a bit of research about this first. You don't want to get a fine if you can avoid it.

/MrsHjort

Day 27 - Verona

I was very pleasantly surprised by Verona. I've never been a fan of larger cities, but Verona is one of the ones I like. It has a lot of beautiful old buildings (I like!) and it didn't feel as crowded as large cities sometimes do. I always feel stressed out and uncomfortable in environments like that, where there are people everywhere, trying to get through, but I felt none of that here. It's a very pleasant place to be in.

As I said, the older parts of the city are gorgeous! Beautiful old buildings mixed with a bit of nature and there's history all around you. I love places like that. And they're a wonderful place to bring your camera too ;). This is Piazza Brà, one of the largest in the country. It's home to a lot of restaurants as well as an amphitheater and the town hall. A wonderful place to start your exploration of the city.

/MrsHjort

Day 26 - The View

This is one of the things I miss the most about Riva del Garda. I've always been a sucker for hotels with great views and this one was something spectacular. I could live here all my life and never get tired of the light show that went live very evening. Wow... just wow!

/MrsHjort

Day 25 - Stormy Evening

I've always been fascinated by thunderstorms. As a child I'd stand in the window trying to catch a glimpse of a lightning bolt, and as an adult I do so still. I've tried to catch one on with my camera many times, and I've gotten a few shots, just none that look cool. One was just from one cloud to another, so no touchdown, and one was so far away it didn't look impressive at all. So I haven't really tried in a while...

This picture is not of a thunder storm but it made me think of that one evening at Lake Como when there was thunder for hours. We had a first class view of it too, sitting on the mountain side in a restaurant overlooking the lake. I'm sorry to say I left my camera at "home". Otherwise I would have given it a shot. I looked much like this though, only without the rays of light. Funny how a picture shot on a relatively clear day can make you think of a night of thunder :)

/MrsHjort

Day 24 - The Old Road

Along the west side of Lago di Garda there's a road that must have taken a lot of time and care to build. There are tunnels upon tunnels built into the mountain. Roads like that always make me think about the wonder of modern engineering, and how much easier it makes our lives. Before that though, there was this - the old road... It runs above the new road and you can look down on it in quite a few places. The old road has a few tunnels too, but it's much narrower, not as straight and harder to maintain. Walking along it, it was hard to imagine that vehicles used to travel there. It looked more like it was made for bikes and trekkers. But to my surprise, there must still be some kind of traffic there at times, as I saw tire tracks in the mud, but I didn’t see what made them... The old road is a very nice place to walk though. It's quite easy too, since it was built for cars and is more or less flat. On a scale of one to ten I'd give it a 2 in difficulty, though don't walk it on a clear hot day if you're not prepared for it.

/MrsHjort

Day 23 - Joy

If you like birds, Riva del Garda is a nice place to visit. Not to say that there are rare birds there, I really wouldn't know, but there are plenty of them and there were baby birds everywhere when we were there. Some of them were pretty used to people too, as you can see. Mr could hardly contain himself with joy as these ducklings marched towards him going "pip pip pip" :) The mother was nearby and kept a watchful eye on them, but she let him pet them for quite a while. If I hadn't had my camera so close at hand I would have been jealous, but getting to preserve this moment was a pleasure.

/MrsHjort

Day 22 - Superman

As we went out on our morning walk along the mini mountain path, I stepped up the last steps of the stairs and found this - the light shining down on my hubby as he stood there, looking out on the city as if he was its protector. An unreal sight, almost magical. "Hold it right there!" Guess if he was pleased as I showed it to him :D

/MrsHjort

Day 21 - Riva del Garda

Out of all the places we traveled in Italy this time along, this is my favorite! Riva del Garda is fantastically beautiful, gives you a lot of options in regards to activities and has some really nice restaurants if you know where to go. One of them, called "Sud", has the beat pizza I've ever had... Gosh, my mouth waters just thinking about it haha.

A good rule of thumb when looking for a place to eat in this city is not to go to the places where the hosts are all over you, trying to get you to eat at their restaurants, instead go to the places that don't need that sort of thing, and are packed anyway - that's where you'll find the really good stuff :).

Also, if you're a person who loves trekking, this is a great place to go. This is shot from a trek up a "hill" (much more than a hill, this is at the foot of the Alps after all) in the middle of the city, which starts right by the hotel we stayed at. So, there are plenty of walks that provide great photo opportunists, as well as some good old exercise :)

/MrsHjort

Day 20 - Cinque Terre

If you do an image search of "Cinque Terre" on Google you'll get a lot of pictures from Manarola and the other villages along the coast. I want to show you a different take on the area. The other day I told you about the drive along the small roads to Manarola. Well, this is very typical of how it looked along those roads farther up the hills. It's very beautiful too, but in an slightly different way. I'm not 100 about the location though, so please excuse me if this is shot from slightly outside the national park :)

/MrsHjort