Ducati.Net Photo Gallery - Vicki's View
Each year Ducati.net travels to Italy in the off season. Italy in November is very different than in the summer high season - different weather is just the beginning, the unique foods in season , the Christmas displays, the winter fashions, and the smaller crowds all add up to a vacation quite unlike what you get in summer. So, after the EICMA motorcycle show we took some time to enjoy Italy in winter. This years trip was a group of 15, started in Milan, moved to Florence and ended in Rome. For me, one of best things is the completely different light, the photos look nothing like summer which is what most people think of when they think of Italy. Photos and captions by Vicki Smith
I was surprised to see most of the leaves still on the trees and in full colors. In the States they were a few weeks ahead and most of the leaves were gone already.
Milan street life. They light the whole Corso Buenos Aires street with motorcycle shaped lights for the week of the EICMA show. If you looked close you could see twinkling lights where the spark plugs would be. It was beautiful at night.
This is the entrance to a courtyard in the inner city. So basically, the roof of a driveway! :-)
Just one of the many great places that people naturally gather on the sidewalks for apertifs and conversation. This is the Cin Cin Bar next to the Hotel City. We began (and ended) each evening here while in Milan. They were cooking waffles with Nutella topping on the sidewalk - I could smell them from my room!
The sign at our hotel (the Hotel City) had an unfortunate malfunction resulting in this unforgettable result and likely forever changing the name in our future references.
Florence. My favorite city in the world, I visit here as often as I can and stay in rented apartments rather than hotels for both the cost savings and the shorter string, so to speak, to feeling like a native. This is the view from my apartment window. That's the David copy outside in the Piazza Signoria, not the real one.
The Piazza Signoria is my favorite place in Florence, this is in front of the entrance to the Galleria by the Uffizi museum.
More Piazza Signoria. It's incredible really and this is just one section of the statues there. These are on the left out my window, there is another whole row of them straight ahead. The history in this place is so real it's like stepping back in time
One block from there is the Arno river. 2006 is the 40 year anniversary of the big flood here and photos were posted all along the banks of the destruction. It was hard to imagine the river rising to that point but the photos were incredible, you could look around you and see the "then and now" so clearly. It was a tribute to the city to have made such a remarkable recovery.
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