Pictures of my trip to Northern Italy

These are my pictures of Milan, Genoa, Pisa, Florence and Venice taken on a trip around Northern Italy last week. I flew into Milan, from where I took trains to Genoa, and from there to La Spezia. I had planned to visit Cinque Terre on the Italian Riviera, but I could see from the train those little villages were already packed with tourists, so I skipped it and made a note to myself to return there off season. Instead, I used the time to stop over for a morning in Pisa, which I hadn’t planned on doing. Finally saw that damn tower. Then I went on to Florence where I spent two days, then to Venice and from there back to Milan.

Looking back on the trip I wish I had given myself more time in Venice. It was less frantic than Florence and visually far more interesting. Perhaps, as an Amsterdammer, I appreciate the presence of water, water everywhere.

I wish I’d had better weather, but the skies were overcast the full week, giving me very little to work with. Or rather, I had to work much harder to get decent pictures. Waking up every morning at the crack of dawn to catch Golden Hour just to be faced by gray skies each day was disappointing. Sunsets weren’t much better. I caught just one, in Florence, where zillions of people were pushing me and each other out of the way to get their selfies. I didn’t get one picture in lovely La Spezia because it rained all day. So, photography wise, this wasn’t the most rewarding trip. On top of that, I caught a bug and so the second half of the week I struggled with a fever and ended up mostly holed up in my B&B in Milan the last two days.

I’ll just have to do it again some day.