Misty Morning

Ancient olive trees in Umbria

Italian Week on Peter's Landscape a Day blog ended on Saturday. Thank you to all who have been looking and enjoying. Tomorrow, Tuesday May 18th, is his 100th study posted. Check it out!

Making Pizza

We started the fire in the early afternoon

One of my favorite memories of Italy, ever, was making home-made pizza with friends in a huge outdoor pizza oven in Umbira. It was a group effort from starting and tending the fire all day to everyone who chopped and assembled the ingredients and shuttled the pizzas between the prep area, ovens and back out to the hungry. It was a magical and memorable night.

Peter continues to stoke the fire as the sun goes down

Outdoor pizza making production line. Are there truffles on those pizzas? Yum.

Pizza man Peter at work

The oven was so hot the pizzas cooked in seconds!

Fresh, hot and delicious and most importantly made with love by all.

Doesn't this look like a Caravaggio painting?

A Misty Morning

Old lady with sheep

We always explore back roads where ever we go. On a foggy morning in Umbria, we kept turning down smaller and smaller roads until the road came to a dead end in the courtyard of an old farmhouse. All the dogs were barking at us and the chickens went scurrying and by the time we turned around, this old lady and her sheep came crashing down the hill and blocked our way out. She was driving them down the road and kept wacking them with her long stick. She was surprisingly nimble, hopping over drainage ditches on the side of the road to go after the occasional errant sheep. Peter thought maybe she wasn't as old as we thought she was! The whole site was very impressive.

Whatever it Takes

Olive tree at sunset

I was looking through Peter's photos of a trip we took to Umbria in 2006. I really loved this olive tree he photographed at sunset. Later, I was looking through my photos and found this one of him taking the photograph.

Peter gets down and dirty

More Italian Week

Hazy morning, Tuscany

Peter is showing 7 more studies from Italy this week on his Landscape a Day blog and I'm going to show a few more of my photos from our past trips. I never get tired of looking at photos of beautiful Italy!

Last Day Rome

The rooftops of Rome

This photo is from the last evening of our trip. Rome. What a beautiful city. It was sad to leave but always good to get home.

Thanks so much to everybody for making Italian Week on Peter's Landscape a Day blog such a success. If you missed out, he is planning another Italian Week soon.

Perfect Tuscan Valley

Morning mist

This photo was taken from my favorite road where I walked at least once a day, usually more. It was amazing to roam some of the property that made up the vineyards and olive groves that go into making the wine and olive oil of Pasolini dall'Onda Borghese.

Sunset Trees

Trees line the road that passes Tizzano

I loved the wiggly dark forms of these trees against the plum sky and house lights.

A Week in Italy

Peter at rest in Tuscany

It's Italian Week on Peter's blog (March 1st-March 7th). He will be featuring 7 studies from a trip we took to Tuscany last fall. While he is highlighting recent studies, I'll be posting some photos from our trip.

In Tuscany, we were guests of our good friends Mary and Rob at Tizzano in Barberino Val D'Elsa. There's a beautiful grape arbor on the property where I caught Peter in a quiet moment. Mary and her sister Gay made a delicious grape tart from the grapes that we picked. It was a lot of work peeling all of those grapes but it was delicious and one of the great experiences of villa life in Italy.