Facades

Who can't help but fall in love with the cockeyed canal houses of Amsterdam? While strolling the streets, I saw numerous sofas being hoisted through windows, hanging from a hook on a wonderfully ornate gable. When I arrived with my enormous suitcase in tow, I laughed when I opened the front door to the apartment I was staying in and wondered how in the world I was going to get up the most narrow staircase I had ever encountered. Very carefully and sideways, as it turned out.
Interesting fact: the houses are narrow because property taxes were based on the width of the house, so people built them narrow, deep, and tall. 

Burano - the pastel city

Burano is the most charming place. As I walked through the town, I kept thinking, this can't be real. It's just a set, right? It's just too perfectly adorable.

I think the whole town is based on the gelato color system. Actually, the colors are controlled by the government. If a homeowner wishes to paint their house, they must submit a request to the government so that they can determine which colors are permitted for that lot.

Home

Although my home isn't as adorable as these homes in Burano, it's good to be back with TB, my cat Six, and all that is comforting and familiar. I had a wonderful trip and I'm thrilled with the photographs I took. They'll be keeping me busy for many months to come.

But in the middle of this heat wave we're having, nostalgia is simmering and my lazy, hazy brain finds itself reminiscing, remembering and missing:

• The colors! My God ... the colors! Pinks, yellows, peaches, blues, greens. Villages like Burano and those in Cinque Terre are works of art. The houses are the canvases onto which the most amazing colors have been painted and one feels as though one is walking through a dream.
• Taking a vaporetto instead of the bus in Venice
• Tagliatelle (pasta) with truffles
• Cafe Americano con latte
• The amazing croissants I ate every day for breakfast while in Tuscany
• Tomatoes bursting with flavor
• The gentle rolling hills of Tuscany
  
• The chance to photograph such incredible beauty for hours each day