Shrines

One of the things that I love about Italy are the small shrines that you find hidden down the back alleys and small streets. 

1- 5. Cinque Terra

6. Sienna

7. Florence

8. Venice

Colours

Cinque Terre

            

Walking through cobbled lanes, bare feet and backpack, sundress and sunglasses. The stones are cool. A lady is watering the pavement and sweeping the water away with a broom. Washing hangs from open windows.
Further along the pavement, the water trickles down the steps, the sea opens out; blue-green and glimmering. Below us there is a tiny rocky beach surrounded and enclosed by high cliffs speckled with aloe vera plants.
Tara and I buy lemon and basil ice creams and eat them on the way down to the sea. We are glad to get off the train and away from the hustle and bustle of Paris.

Giverny

“My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece”
Claude Monet

Weird Art - Paris

Scurrying through galleries of rich treasures, I seek out things that talk more deeply than of their surface beauty... Both in the Louvre and in the the most unexpected gallery (Musée du quai Branly, beneath the Eiffel tower) wonderful treasures are found that speak many hundreds of stories.... 

These are stories of Ancient cultures, legends and gods, of colonisation and sadly of cultures lost. But it is beautiful to see them, nestled here amongst Europe's finest treasures... and amazing to feel the stories that they carry.