Florence, Italy

We were only in Florence, Italy for a day and a half..and it rained most of the time... We grabbed our umbrellas and walked around town.. Here are some photographs of some of the things that interested me about the town and its people... People waiting for the Catholic church to open:

A little old lady with her bike and umbrella..Second photo is when she was wiping the water off of her bike.

This elderly Italian gentleman  trying to start his scooter ...All of a sudden he took off down the street.

Kids seem to be the same everywhere..Love their Iphones:

Utility workers and the public drive small vehicles for fuel economy:

Italians like to dress up when they go out shopping:

Main means of transportation in Italy:

We took a bus ride up to see Michael Angelo's David :

The view of Florence, from the parking lot, is spectacular.

View of the Arno river and the Ponte Vecchio bridge.

Looking at the various pizza shops, fruit stands, and small stores are interesting.:

Burano..An Island of many colored buildings

I have always wanted to go to Burano, Italy.. It is an Island about 30 minuets, by boat, from Venice..

We left early in the morning so we could get there before the crowds.. It was well worth it.. Here are some

photographs to give you an idea of what it is like on Burano..

(Click to enlarge)

Now a photo of a church with a crooked tower:

Next month I will post some photographs of Florence and Rome.

Venice, Italy....A photographer's paradise

We arrived at the Venice, Italy airport around 11:00 am. .We took a bus down to the Grand Canal entrance where we bought 3 day passes for the Veporeto (italian water bus)..Here are some photos that I took on the way to St Marks Square.

(Click to enlarge )

After we took out luggage to the B&B we started to walk the front and back streets of Venice for
five hours. The next morning we were up at 5:30am walking the street again...

(Click to enlarge )

After a nap we went out again. All of a sudden Venice was full of people. It happened to be a national
holiday. Celebrating the defeat of Mussalini by the underground. Here is a photo of the people..haha

(Click to enlarge )

Gondola traffic jam..:

We went to St Marks square and took some photos of  St Marks Basillica.

Inside

 Outside

April is Baby Duck month

When we were taking a walk around the ponds, I spotted a mother duck and her 7 baby ducks...We went home and got our cameras and came right back.. Here are the first few photographs:

( Click to enlarge )

Various neighbors feed the ducks..here is a photo of the mother duck leading the little ones to a neighbors patio for a treat..:

Here is one of Yvonne taking photo's of the ducks:

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I go buy at least every other day to see how they are doing...now we are down from 7 baby's to 5.

Here is a photo of one of the little ducks alone:

Here is another image of four baby ducks fishing together:

Baby Ducks are fun to photograph.

April Trip to Big Sur

I always love going along the Big Sur coast ...We went there on April 10th only to find a cloudy day..

Couldn't resist taking 300 images... I worked on a few of them in Adobe lightroom and Adobe Photoshop.. (click to enlarge).

This is a coastline image without much post processing:

Then I decided to add a blue sky,etc..and here is the result :

A trip to the San Jose Rose Garden

We went to the San Jose rose garden the morning after it rained all night...All of the roses had natures natural water drops on them. There were lots of different kinds of roses. The roses are constantly being taken care of by a full time crew of gardeners. Here are my favorite photographs from our photography outing..fun.

(click to enlarge all the floweres)

The last rose was laying down on the job.