I'm back from Italy ...

I've just spent four great days on the border between the Lombardie and Piemont region in northern Italy in the Pô plains.

If you look on a map, to the north west of Milan and then west a bit more from lake Como, you'll see a little commune, Orta, nestled on the lake from which it gets it's name.

In the middle of the lake there lies an island (l'Isola di San Giulio) where once existed the ancient chateau of the ruling dukes - in the eighteen hundreds this was then reconstructed to house a basilica dediciated to St Jules.
Enough of the history lesson ....

Under buckets of pouring rain (in the middle of june .. in Italy !!) my older sister got married to her bloke of about ten years or so with twenty or thirty of her best friends in attendance.




I didn't know many people there, but those that i met i found absolutely charming and lovely.

Before and after the wedding we sort of naturally drifted off into ad hoc groups to go and explore the old town .










I think, ultimately, we spent more time checking out ice cream parlours, pizza houses and pasta joints than really 'visiting' anything.


Did i mention it rained almost non stop ?

No ?


One partculiar thing is the light in the area : we we're at a relatively high altitiude and had a micro climate.

So on alternate days, the basilic could look like this :

This :

Or this : Truly fascinating.

A substantial amount of time was spent skinny dipping in the lake, swatting away mosquitoes, drinking chilled wine, watching the fish jumping and just sitting looking at the way the sunlight reflected off of the clouds onto the lake ...




The final few shots of the island were taken at nightfall as we all strolled down to the town to have a last night drink and to exchange hugs and fond farewells.




I've been up since four this morning (my plane back home was at seven) and as i was waiting for the taxi to take me to the airport, i sat on a wall and watched the bats and listened to the birds singing.

It's those moments, right there, that are meant to be shared ...