Truthfully, I had nothing but the best intentions with regards to waking up early Saturday morning. I set my alarm for 04h45 with the hopes of photographing the partly-cloudy sunrise over the Grand Canal, but despite my best efforts didn’t end up falling asleep until about 90 minutes before said alarm would first go off. It woke me up, but not with enough influence to get me out of bed. I read e-mails, texted friends in the US who were still out on Friday night, and didn’t fall back asleep until 6. My plan was to take another nap, but by the time I opened my eyes for good it was after eleven… I was speechless, and shot out of bed to get ready and out the door before I lost any more of the day.
 
Brad was ready to go before my eyes even opened, so by the time my camera bag was on my back he was halfway out the front door. We decided the first order of business was going to be food of some sort, so we made our way down to the Canal near the San Polo side of the Rialto bridge, finding a table at a restaurant along the water where we could watch the gondolas, water-taxis, and tourists parade by on either side of us. I ordered a smoked salmon dish with ricotta cheese, and a liter of water to start my day’s hydration, a delicious meal that I wrapped up as the temperatures began dropping and wind picked up outside. It was becoming more overcast, as we knew it would be before the rain began, and temperatures were already in the low 60s. Once the bill was paid we made our way over the Rialto and headed towards the waterfront of the San Marco area, home to the Piazza San Marco, the National Library, and San Marco’s Campanile, the famous bell tower of the Basilica. This area was one I was familiar with from that opening scene of The Italian Job as Donald Sutherland calls his daughter, played by Charlize Theron, to tell her they’re doing “one more heist” before he retires. I used my phone to navigate us through the narrow and exceptionally crowded streets, and after ten or so minutes we laid eyes on the side of the Basilica di San Marco, a gigantic and beautiful church built between 978 and 1092 AD and has an incredible presence over the plaza.
 
After wandering around, photographing, and putting our jackets on to combat the growing wind, we made out way back to the Campanile tower, standing in line to take the elevator to the top of the 100m structure. For a reasonable $8 we bought our tickets and piled onto a tiny elevator for the quick ride to the observation deck, adorned with massive cast bells hanging overhead. I began photographing the island from the elevated position, my ideal kind of vantage point in any city. As I snapped away, I was startled (many other spectators more than me) when the bells shattered the otherwise quiet atmosphere to ring the half-hour chimes. Watching them swing overhead was an incredibly unique opportunity, and one I’m glad we were there to experience. As more people came up to the observation deck, we made our way back onto the elevator, packed in like sardines, and descended back to the street level. Our next adventure would be taking a water ferry over to Murano, a small island a thousand feet off the northern shore of San Polo, so off we went, jackets blocking the ever-increasing wind, to find the water taxi terminal.
 
Though Brad might be mad that I sell him out on this, he took the lead for our navigation to the taxi, and despite my questioning our direction a few times while walking, we spent nearly 30 minutes walking and ended up at the water taxi dock no more than a hundred feet from the base of the bell tower we had left from. I teased him relentlessly for this snafu as we bought a round trip ticket to Murano, boarding the water taxi as the waves from a windy bay slapped up against the side of the 60-foot passenger boat. The ride across the harbor was entertaining, as it was fascinating to see what the tiny islands that Venice is comprised of looked like from offshore. The ride to Murano took no more than 20 minutes, and before we knew it we were docking on the small island, the vibrantly painted buildings popping out against the grey skies behind them. Known around the world for their famous hand-blown glass, we knew that along with a few notable architectural destinations we definitely wanted to see glass being blown by local artisans. Utilizing the narrow concrete bridges to cross over the causeways between the island’s lagoons, we stopped briefly at the Saints Maria and Donato Basilica, home to an expansive mosaic tile floor that dates back to September of 1141 AD.
 
We wandered up and down the town streets following the main canal, stopping into dozens of stores looking at glasswork, watching glassblowers, and keeping an eye out for the window sticker denoting the products being sold were actually made in Murano. After we each found a few gifts for friends and family at home, I stood on the sidewalk as a light rain began to fall and Bradley wrapped up the purchasing of a locally made bottle of cologne in a store nearby. We walked back towards the watertaxi stand as the rain turned to an almost downpour, causing us to duck into a hotel lobby restaurant for an afternoon cocktail and appetizer to hold us over until dinner. By the time we finished our drinks and snack the rain had only gotten worse, so we quickly ran over and boarded the taxi back to the closest stop to our Airbnb.
 
After rushing through the wet streets with no jackets or umbrellas, we got to the house and took a quick nap before turning around and heading back out into the weather so that I could photograph the sunset in the Piazza San Marco. I had the forethought to bring a rain jacket and waterproof cover for my camera, and Brad brought his umbrella, so we were much more prepared to stand in the rain for an hour or two while the overcast skies caught whatever color the sun allowed them that evening. We made our way over the Rialto Bridge for the third time that day, arriving in the Piazza as the sky began its shift from grey to a deeply saturated blue. The streetlamps glowed, casting an orange hue in the sky and shining back in the reflective puddles that covered the ground. Faint sounds of a saxophone reverberated across the centuries old stone buildings as a small trio began playing covers of Sinatra, Billie Holiday, and other Rat Pack tunes. It honestly was akin to standing on the set of a movie, the rain pouring down overhead as couples with bright umbrellas made their way across the courtyard and the music surrounded us from seemingly every direction. My camera stood faithfully atop a tripod, and Bradley did a fantastic job sharing his umbrella with it (adding to the protection of the waterproof camera cover) as I did my best to keep the wind from blowing raindrops on the lens. Despite my best efforts, in the end my most favorite photograph of the night is adorned with a handful of rain droplets on the lens that caught the light of the Piazza in the most incredible way.  I’m sure we looked odd to the people rushing by to locations more suited for waiting out the rain, but in looking over the photos later that night, I’m so incredibly glad we stood in the rain to photograph this breathtakingly gorgeous city.
 
The rest of the night flew by after we packed up the camera, and before I knew it we were back at the house and I was passing out on my bed. It was our last night in the city, and the next morning we were headed to the airport to pick up a car to drive back to Rome, breaking the tourism mold and sightseeing our way across the country out the windows of a two-door five-speed Renault.
 
I hope you enjoy the photos... there are a few more than usual, but I couldn't bring myself to be more selective.
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​Having finally drifted to sleep after 0330hrs, my alarm blaring in my ear a mere four hours later was not a welcomed occurance. I got up and quickly packed my gear into one of my hybrid hiking/photography backpacks, the LowePro Rover 45L.  It’s got some nifty removable interior compartments for holding camera gear, some straps for trekking poles and tent attachments, and a built-in rain cover. I threw my camera gear inside - five batteries, three lenses, three filters, and one body – and then packed the clothes I’d need in the remaining space. Brad packed his stuff simultaneously, and by 9 we were hailing a cab across town for our train that left an hour later.
 
The ride to Venice on the ItaliaRail took three and a half hours, bringing us through lusciously green countryside, moving along at speeds of up to 240 mph. I got some work done writing, edited some photos from the night before, and stared out the window watching the world fly by. When we arrived at the Venezia Santa Lucia train station in the early afternoon, the host of the Airbnb we had booked to stay at met us and was going to bring us to the apartment. Originally when we heard she was bringing us there I envisioned a small car, typical of those that are seen buzzing everywhere around Europe. Having no real clue as to the ins and outs of Venice, shy for a few movies (namely The Italian Job’s opening heist scene), I had no idea that we would be snaking through the labyrinth of stone streets, through countless courtyards, past compact glass storefronts with every kind of souvenir and local artistry you could ever imagine, and what seemed like a million small footbridges crossing the causeways. I was enamored, my camera’s viewfinder pressed against my eye as if I was running out of time alive to take photos of my gorgeous surroundings. At one point the hostess turned to Brad, noticing I was no longer with them, and asked if I was going to be okay navigating on my own… he laughed and explained that I’d catch up shortly as soon as I had snapped a photo of whatever scene caught my eye.
 
We arrived at the house in about 15 minutes and after being acquainted with the sparse second floor apartment, were left to our own devices. Having not had breakfast we arranged our stuff in our respective rooms, and headed out for lunch at one of the many courtyard restaurants, sitting at a table in the sunshine and people watching as we ate. After settling up our tab with the hostess, we attempted to recreate our path back to the train station, knowing it was the most centrally accessible area we could wander from. The narrow streets made for an exciting walk, and we made a lot of u-turns at dead ends where the walkway would simply give way to a river with no forewarning. I took pictures as we walked around the Venice, and we stopped after a while for Brad to get some gelato. As the afternoon hours passed, the sun made its way across the sky and the shadows on buildings became too harsh for me to photograph. We went back to the house to hang out for a while, and each inadvertently passed out on our beds for close to two hours. Waking up to the sounds of people in the streets outside my window, I swapped camera batteries, loaded up my tripod, and woke Bradley so our adventures could continue into the night.
 
Venice is famous for the Rialto Bridge, a behemoth of stone originally constructed in 1531, that spans over the Grand Canal. I figured that would be a good place to start shooting during sunset, but turned away when I found the bridge covered in tourists taking their own photos; it didn't speak to me the way I hoped it would, and I was envious of painters who can simply opt to leave people out of their images. Not one to let a good sky go to waste, I led us back across the San Polo district of Venice until we arrived back at the train station. I set up shop with my tripod on the north side of the city, my lens aimed east down the Grand Canal as ships made their way down the river. As the sky lost its bright blue tones and settled into deeper hues, we moved to a different location to shoot. I spent quite a while taking pictures down a small causeway, eventually getting enough material to put the lens cap back on and meander on towards dinner. I’m immensely grateful that Brad has been on enough photo adventures with me in the past to know that I say “just one more shot” a hundred times before actually being done; his patience was not taken for granted... sometimes it really is worth while to stick around for one more shutter click.
 
Despite being in an incredibly old Italian city, the fact that it was Cinco de Mayo left us in the mood for margaritas. We used Google to our advantage and found a Mexican restaurant a fifteen-minute walk away, making the perfect destination for dinner. We were seated after a short wait, a table for two outside the restaurant where the waiter would occasionally remember to check in on us, refilling drinks and eventually bringing our meals. We called it a night around 23h00, getting incredibly lost on the way back to the house when Brad’s iPhone kept suggesting roads that ended at the water instead of those with bridges to where we needed to be. I eventually ruled his phone out of our navigation equipment list, and used my own to get us back to our apartment.
 
After rinsing off in what honestly may be the world’s smallest shower (it’s literally 22”x22”, impossible to move around in without bashing elbows on the frosted Plexiglas sides) I sat on my bed and talked to Bradley between the walls about what was on the schedule for tomorrow. The weather is supposed to turn to rain in the late afternoon, but if we manage an early start we can probably get most of our itinerary completed before the skies open up. We walked eleven miles around Venice today, most of which I did with a heavy backpack on… Not bad for a guy who isn’t actually hiking anywhere.
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Arrivederci, friends.

My second day in Rome wasn’t too different from the first, though the lack of shut-eye from my travels kept me asleep until well after 10:00 AM… My girlfriend tells me that I can only qualify as having slept in if the “clock reaches double digits”, so I guess I accomplished that.  I woke and showered, doing some writing and photo editing on the patio as Bradley got back from some time with his personal trainer down the road. Our main goal for the late morning was to visit the Colosseum during daylight hours, something he had done already with his sister but was willing to do again with me. We packed up for the day and walked down the street to a pizza shop, getting two personal-sized pineapple and ham pizzas, apparently a customer favorite at the establishment. After eating, we grabbed a taxi across the city via the myTaxi app, Europe’s Uber-like app for hailing a cab. Full disclosure, Uber does exist here, but only with the more expensive ride options; the ease of using the app with cabs allows paying with the swipe of a finger and preconfigured billing methods, making it a lot easier to get in and out of a cab without issue. 
 
As we wound our way through the incredibly hectic streets of Rome, with mopeds and other cars cutting in and out of each other, I verified my seatbelt was in working order and proceeded to stare out the window admiring the vibrant colors and age of the buildings we passed. After a while the cab driver asked, in decent English, where we were from and what we were doing in Rome. I explained that I was from Boston and was a photographer, while Brad explained his employment with “the Circus” as he calls it – I think to anyone from the US, Cirque du Soleil is a far superior product to the circus, but it’s the easiest way he can explain it to people who aren’t as familiar with the shows. The driver remained quiet for a while before asking me quite bluntly, “How is the American Dream?” – a question that left me rather dumbfounded, as I haven’t recently checked to see how the American Dream was doing. I mumbled some words and asked if he had ever visited the US, which he said he hadn’t and then expressed his interest in moving to North Carolina, debating aloud between Charlotte and Raleigh for a while before eventually dropping us off outside the Colosseum. Quite the morning it had been already!
 
There was a surprising lack of lines at the gigantic and nearly two thousand year old structure. Originally constructed in 70 AD and built of concrete and sand, it’s known as the largest amphitheater ever built. We breezed right through the metal detectors at security, buying tickets for just $12 and heading up the wide staircases to the upper floors of the Colosseum.  Seeing as Brad had taken the tour with his sister just a week prior, he immediately hopped into tour guide mode and began reciting facts he learned from his last guided visit. We shuffled around the venue moving along through small crowds and doing our best to dodge swinging “selfie-sticks” as tourists of all ages stopped unexpectedly and decided it was the perfect time to extend their 3-foot aluminum rods to take a photo of themselves. At one point I started snapping photos of people photographing themselves with these silly devices. We finished our rounds through the amphitheater as Brad ran out of facts to recite, and I stood in amazement overlooking the gigantic opening where the floor used to be, doing my best to envision blood-soaked sand from men and animals alike who fought each other until death in front of immeasurable crowds in the audience above. Shy of the lack of life at the end of an event, it wasn’t all that difficult to picture football being along the same lines a few thousand years later. Here we were in a gigantic venue overflowing with spectators, alcohol, blood, and camaraderie as gladiators (and animals) battled to win against each other… Sound familiar?
 
We exited through the monstrous steel gates and walked towards the gated entrance to where the remains of the Roman Forum still stand. Moving slowly through countless remains of broken freestanding columns and buildings of centuries past, it was yet again incredible to think of just how old this area is. As Brad so eloquently put it, “When they say Rome wasn’t built in a day, they certainly mean it”. We snapped some photos and read small signage depicting the scenes laid out before us, and eventually turned our sights towards the main road above. By now it was nearly 15h00, and Bradley had to make his way to work; we parted ways at the Tomb of the Forgotten Soldier, and while he took a cab to the Cirque du Soleil big-top site, I decided that I would spend my afternoon walking across the city back to his apartment. Camera in one hand and a very rough idea in my mind of where I was headed, I walked and photographed at an exceptionally leisurely pace, winding through empty side streets and squeezing through packed cul-de-sacs where children played in fountains and adults bathed in the gorgeous sunlight while sitting on steps of more ancient buildings… It reminded me a bit of Boston in the summer when kids play in the fountain outside the Christian Science Center and people take lunch breaks by the Reflecting Pool.
 
I took a few hundred photos, challenging myself to work with the bright mid-day light as it shone high above (as someone who spends most of my photography life between dusk and dawn, it’s an out-of-my-element kind of experience to shoot during the day!).  I walked as the miles flew by under my feet, using the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica to base my location and trajectory off of, making my way back towards Brad’s apartment. I followed Rome's Tiber River, walking past booksellers and souvenir shops lined up under the cover of immense riverside trees in a way that reminded me of similar walks down the Seine in Paris. Arriving at his house in the late afternoon I showered and got changed for the Cirque du Soleil show I was seeing that night, the grand opening/premiere event for the Rome show series. A long taxi ride in rush-hour traffic brought me to the big top tent site where Brad gave me a great tour of the set and introduced me to more co-workers than I could begin to remember. The show was unbelievably phenomenal, a love story of a man and woman from two drastically different communities, and involved a lot of aerial acrobatics and a gorgeous display of light and sound. The audience of regional celebrities was captivated, and it took no time at all for them to be on their feet when the curtain call began. When the show was over we hung out for the after party, then made our way back to his apartment across town well past midnight, after which I stayed up editing photos of the days adventures. Having walked another 8 miles throughout the city throughout the day, I was surprised to still be awake so late into the night.
 
Our plan for tomorrow morning is to rise early and take a taxi to the train station, making our way north through the Italian countryside until we arrive in Venice, where we’ll spend the weekend… I’m really looking forward to photographing the causeways, bridges, and boats, as well as visiting the historical monuments the city is home to. Until then I'll focus my efforts on trying to get some sleep.
 
More to come.

It's been a while since I've been able to post; work has been crazy and I've basically been traveling non-stop since mid-January. Time home has been short, and is usually allocated to projects that need to be done around the house or spending time with friends, leaving me little opportunity to get out and explore in the mountains or accomplish anything worth reading about. I'm thinking that for a few days I might be able to change that by adding some atypical content to the site and your inbox.

Bradley, one of my closest friends and an old touring/production co-worker, left the United States a year ago to begin a new life traveling with Cirque du Soleil as a lighting engineer. He's since lived in Brussels, London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Austria, setting up in the big-top tent and working on performances for two months at a time before the show packs up and moves onto the next city. When he initially departed from Florida, I promised I'd visit him overseas, though life "happened" and schedules never seemed to allow for it. This past February I decided to look at flights, and grabbed a round-trip ticket to Rome, his new location as of April 27th, for $750 round trip on Delta... hard to pass that up for a flight to Europe on an airline I know won't beat me up or lose my stuff.  Packing up a handful of clothing and a lot of camera gear, I flew over via Amsterdam on Tuesday night, landing at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci-Fuimicino Airport shortly before noon on May 3rd. Brad picked me up from the airport in an Uber and we took the half-hour ride back to his new accommodations in downtown Rome. Situated in a perfectly sized Air-BnB he's renting for his time here, he's walking distance from famous local attractions, and has a fabulous roof-deck which I'm currently sitting on as I write this, soaking up the sun and occasionally glancing over in awe at the dome of St. Peter's Basilica as it towers over the other rooftops between us and Vatican City. After storing my suitcase in his house we took off to explore, making the short 5-minute walk over to the Vatican where we scoped out the plethora of options for guided tours. Picking to go with the least perpetually annoying tour solicitor, we paid $41 euros each for what became an informative, somewhat hectic, two- hour tour of the Vatican Museum, St. Peter's Basilica, and the Sistine Chapel.

They say that over 6 million people visit the Vatican on an annual basis, a whopping number, but still only a third of the attendance numbers Disney World pulls in a year. Unlike my times at Disney, the chaotic experience of walking through the Vatican is something I will not soon forget. Wide hallways are packed full of tourists from around the globe as dozens of tours simultaneously take place, and there were many moments where I felt like I was drowning in an ever-moving current of people.  We listened to our tour guide describe the statues, tapestries, and artwork around us via a small FM receiver and tiny, stereotypically uncomfortable earbuds, though due to the unavoidable separation between guide and group, I found it to be more of an un-synced but interesting narrative. I shuffled my feet in the crowds of people moving forward at a glacial pace, snapping photos when I could, finding myself in awe of all that surrounded me. Over the course of the first 90 minutes we moved through a few courtyards, many hallways, the Gallery of Tapestries, the Gallery of Maps, and towards the entrance to the Sistine Chapel. Being reminded constantly that it was a holy place, I removed my hat as we stepped down wide staircases quietly into the chapel itself, stopping for a few minutes as our tour group joined another thousand people standing admiring the walls and Michelangelo's world-renound paintings adorning the nearly 400-year old building's ceilings.

Leaving the Chapel we moved along to the outside of St. Peter's Basilica, overlooking the Square, as our tour came to an end. We handed back the guided tour ear-buds, and the group dispersed. Brad and I decided at this point to spend the extra $6 to climb the 500+ stairs to the top of the St. Peter's dome (we saved $2 by not taking the elevator, ha!) which was an incredibly unique climb as the staircase got shorter, more narrow, and even pitched sideways as we continued up. The last hundred steps or so were up an incredibly tight spiral staircase, maybe only 4-feet wide at it's diameter, eventually bringing us to the top of the dome's cupola where we soaked in the panoramic views of Rome. We lingered for a while, meandering around the circumference of the cupola before descending back the way we came, pitched hallway and all, and exiting ten minutes later into the Basilica itself. I wandered around the church for a half-hour taking as many photographs as I could, using an ultra-wide angle lens to convey the sheer scale of the building and its expansive ceilings and embellishments, and we eventually departed to find somewhere to eat.

A brief dinner at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant just outside the Vatican walls was washed down with a glass of red wine, leaving us ready to wander a little longer, visiting more with the city as the sun went down and the amber-cast lights illuminated the centuries old structures on every street corner. We took a taxi to the Colosseum, snapping a few pictures before the photographer in me deemed the area overcrowded for any kind of good imagery, and then slowly walked back through the city as the night went on. We saw the famous Spanish Steps, the beautiful and incredibly well attended Trevi Fountain, and the massive Altare della Patria, or "Altar of the Fatherland" and its Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. With the clock striking midnight, and me being exhausted from the little sleep I got on the airplane and plenty of foot-travel throughout the day, we hailed a taxi back to Brad's apartment and called it a night.

The plans for the next few days includes more time in Rome, a train ride to Venice for a few nights, and hopefully a stop in Pisa before I fly out again. I'm looking forward to taking a ton more photos, and sharing them and some stories with you all as the trip continues on.

Ciao!
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