Italy! Civita Di Bagnoregio

Civita Di Bagnoregio (pronounced ‘bon-yo-rej-eo)

After the harried process of renting a car in Rome, we headed north to see the sights of Italy with full hearts and wide eyes. We had heard of this cool city on a hill that was on the way to our first night’s stay in Orvieto, so we took a short detour to see what it was about. Oh yes, it was for real. You see the photos and almost in disbelief, we walked around the corner from the parking lot and whoa! There it is. AHHHH!! (singing it of course, in a high angel-pitch!)

Of course I immediately whipped out the phone, took a shot and ran back to the car to let them know we had found it. Parking was definitely a bit of a drama and we were not really confident that we were in a spot that was legal. Fortunately, we found a person who spoke English and explained a few things. The blue lined parking spaces are NOT handicapped like they are in America. They are fine to park in, but they are not FREE parking. No Problem on the parking fee- we just didn’t want to get the fine for stealing a handicapped spot!

So I snapped my shot and ran back to the car, nearly shrieking with excitement and everyone hurriedly gathered up the gear. I was amazed that it was right THERE!! It was funny actually, looking back, that everything seemed so small- and so close! The whole area we traveled for 2 weeks was actually in a space no larger than driving from Sacramento to Bakersfield. A 5 hour drive- less than 300 miles from Rome! We basically started in Rome, rented a car and drove north to Bologna. (staying at a few cities along the way). We took a train ride to Venice for one day, and then we turned west, went to the ocean (Cinque Terre) and then back to Rome! Here’s our little map I made on Photoshop to gaze at longingly for the months before the trip!

In 14 days, we stayed in Rome, Orvieto, Sienna, Florence, Bologna, Levanto and Lucca, but visited quite a few other cities along the way in between. (see stars) Traveling with our friends, Greg and Sharon Lewis was a delight and Sharon did an amazing job of planning our itinerary with 2 nights at each location except the last one at Lucca. Our first trip to Italy was unforgettable and delightful and beyond my imagination!

Sharon and Jon were not so keen on the hike over to the city and we only had 45 min on the parking spot, so they sat and watched the people, while Greg and I hiked over. It was a pretty easy hike-much easier than all the stairs to get here from the parking lot!

Here’s the view of the walkway looking back from the city. With full frame you can see Jon and Sharon sitting on the bench patiently waiting…EVEN CROPPED TO 5% of the frame!

It’s amazing resolution, although I preferred carrying the weight of the G9 since we were hiking all over Italy.

A big treat for me at this location was the chance to take the Lumix S1 full frame and not have to share with Jon! So most of my images are vey high resolution and so beautiful. You can see each person on the walkway in extreme detail! The down side was we only had one lens for it- just a 24-70 mm lens, so I still used my Lumix G9 for the wide angles, and of course, the G7 for the infrared.