{photos} our trip to europe

Remember that time when I went to Europe for a friend's wedding? Well I'm finally posting the pictures! I was actually waiting for my film to come back from the lab (I'll share those photos tomorrow), and then once it came back, I had zero free time to blog them! So here goes, with the story to go along. I was kind of inconsistent when it came to shooting on the trip (I was on vacation after all), so I'll try to fill in the blanks as much as I can.

We arrived in Zurich, Switzerland late Sunday morning and took the train into the city to find our hosts' house. Ed found a nice young couple through AirBnB whose apartment was only a few tram stops away from the main part of downtown Zurich and very close to the waterfront. After settling in and napping for a bit, we took a walk down to the waterfront and got some crappy pizza on our way back. Fortunately, our hosts were cooking a much better meal for dinner when we arrived and invited us to join. We had a quiet evening in, eating and drinking wine with our hosts and trying to adjust to the time change.

Monday morning we got up bright and early, so early in fact, it wasn't bright out yet! We decided not to fight it and just headed out hoping to find breakfast. Most of the shops hadn't opened yet, but after about 40 minutes of walking around and taking in the scenery, we found a small cafe nestled in a courtyard off the main street and got some chocolate-hazelnut croissants and coffee. We continued to walk around smaller back-alley-type streets, but since we were still a couple hours too early for the shops, we ended up near a boating dock where a lady had just put out seeds for the birds, so we sat and watched them for a bit as the city started to wake up.





We took a train to Üetliberg, a mountain that overlooks Zurich. We started with a small hike to what I call the Tower of Terror. It's just a tower with stairs up to a lookout point, but I'm afraid of heights, hence the terror. I managed to climb it, almost turning around a couple times, and spent about 10 minutes clinging to the middle beam before venturing out near the edge to take a photo. After some tears on the way down, Ed treated me to a lovely lunch at the restaurant below, which included hot-pink (beet) risotto! When we returned to the city, we took the trains around to three museums, all of which were closed. After finding the 3rd museum closed, we read the guidebook our hosts provided and realized that all the museums were closed on Mondays. Oops!



On Tuesday we picked up our rental car and began our drive into Italy. The Swiss countryside is absolutely lovely, but nothing could have prepared me for how awesome the drive through the Alps was! My pictures don't even begin to do them justice; those mountains were just so massive! Once we arrived in Italy, we detoured on our way to Florence and drove into Venice at my request. Ed had been before and didn't care for it, but I figured I wouldn't be back in Italy anytime soon, so we might as well. He obliged, we went, it was ok. Venice in and of itself is pretty interesting, but the experience was kind of meh. Very touristy, very commercialized. We walked into Piazza San Marco, and as I turned around to get a 360 view, I was greeted by an ad featuring a larger-than-life Scarlett Johansson covering the entire side of the building. So authentic! :P I'm glad I went and saw Venice, but once was enough. Especially when you consider the lasagna that looked like and had the consistency of vomit (no pictures of that, you're welcome)! After dinner, I got to try my hand at the Italian Freeway and drove us to the villa everyone was staying at for the wedding in Gambassi Terme (about 45 minutes southwest of Florence), arriving right after midnight.



On Wednesday, a tour bus came to the villa to pick everyone up for a trip to Sienna followed by wine tasting. I had been particularly interested in visiting Sienna since my art history professor in college had lived there and talked about it more than any other city, but Ed and I were tired from travelling the day before, so we opted out. Francesca and Craig, our friends who were getting married that week, we tired and getting over nasty colds, so the four of us played hooky and instead took the car into San Gimignano for lunch and gelato. This was probably my favourite part of the entire trip; just the four of us, no agenda, crazy-good food, and not super busy tourist-wise. When we headed back to the villa we took a walk around the property and were greeted by some deer from the other side of the fence. A few more of our friends arrived that day, so that evening I cooked us a big pasta dinner so we didn't have to worry about going out. It was really nice to catch up with everyone and have a quiet evening in. Unfortunately, the kitchen at the villa wasn't exactly stocked, so we had to improvise a lot (including using a kitchen towel as a table runner/communal napkin)!



On Thursday, we drove into Florence with a few of our friends for lunch and a bit of sight-seeing. As I had previously mentioned, the class I took in college was Renaissance Art History, and a lot of it focused on Italian art and architecture, specifically in Florence and Sienna. I was excited to see some of the works I had studied, though it turned out it was more interesting learning about them and hearing the stories than it was actually looking at them in person. I'm going to chalk that up to having an amazing teacher and having seen photos of all the works from just about every angle possible. Still, it was kind of cool seeing the statues in the Loggia (Perseus with the head of Medusa is my favourite in there). We then had a 2-hour lunch in front of the Duomo and spent about 5 minutes in the Duomo, as we got their right before it closed. It was a BIG beautiful space; the scale of it was something I couldn't quite grasp from textbooks and slides.



Side story: I've talked to people about always having a camera in hand, which I don't recommend. I feel like if I'm busy taking photos, then I'm not participating in what I'm taking a photo of. This serves me just fine when I'm working, and shooting is an experience in and of itself, but there are times I'd rather just experience something than try to capture it, possibly unsuccessfully. When we left Florence and headed back to the villa, we took a scenic route that overlooked the city. We started the drive right before sunset, and there was a beautiful glow over the city, one of the most breathtaking scenes I've even seen. Rather than fiddle with my camera hoping to get a picture that would even begin to convey the beauty of the city right then, I decided to be present and just enjoy it. I will never forget how the green dome of the cathedral looked in that light, nor how I felt overwhelmed by such beauty as we pulled out of the city.

Speaking of being present, when Friday rolled around and it was wedding time, I left my camera in my room. I knew Jillian would be taking amazing photos, and if she needed me to take any photos (since she was the only photographer) I could always run in and grab my camera. Instead, Ed and I partied hard with our friends and danced our heinies off! It really was a gorgeous wedding, which you can view on Jillian's blog here and here.



On Saturday morning I finally took a look around the main building of the villa and at the beautiful pieces in there. After taking a few photos, we joined the rest of the group for a post-wedding breakfast out on the lawn before we packed up the car to head back to Switzerland.



Since we were flying out of Zurich the next morning we decided to spend the night before in Switzerland, just in case we had any border issues to deal with (we didn't). We stayed at another apartment Ed found on AirBnb that overlooked the lake in Lugano. The city we were in, Campione d'Italia, is technically part of Italy, but surrounded by Switzerland and abides by Swiss law. During our stay in Swistaly (my name for it, not the actual name), we walked down to a bar on the waterfront right as happy hour started (happy hour comes with a lot of free food at that particular bar) and then headed to a really lovely restaurant afterward for dinner. The next day we hopped in the car and drove the rest of the way to Zurich airport (where we ran into Jillian again before departing!).



It really was an amazing trip! I got to see lots of things but still have time to rest, eat amazing food and spend quality time with Ed and our friends! I'll post a few more pictures from the film lot tomorrow.