City on the Hill

This is Civita di Bagnoregio, a city perched on a hill top in Umbria. It's a "dead" city - depending on who you talk to there are only a few or no residents. It's filled with tourists by day, marveling over the city perched on top and carved into the rock of the hill, some back to Etruscan time. Slowly collapsing into the valley below, one cliffside at a time. I love the profile of the town in this image, the buildings and hill against the clouds and distant hillside.

Castle Views

Since castles, the real fortress castles, were in strategic locations on defensible hills, they also have fantastic views. That was not the purpose of course, it was all about military defense, but it certainly must have been an added bonus of living there! This view is of the chapel in the Bled Castle, with the surrounding countryside. Such green beauty! I wouldn't mind living with this view every day.

The Coast

Aaaaah, a place that I love. The Oregon Coast. We were on home leave in Corvallis last week, visiting friends, doctors, dentists, property managers and more than a few stores. Patrick took to calling it our "restocking trip." Very true. But one day, we got out the coast on a beautiful, sunny day. And I was reminded that with all of the exciting places we've visited in the last 10 months, there are still many wonderful things about our "real" home here in Oregon.

Farewall to the Alps

One last photo from Alpe di Siusi, before moving on to other subjects. Sun, snow, mountains, horses, what could be prettier? I'm not a huge horse fanatic, but could appreciate the beauty of these animals in the snow. So gorgeous.

I hope you enjoyed the brief visit this week to the Italian Alps!

Majestic Mountains

This is the view from the top of the Puflatsch/Bullaccia mountain in the Seiser Alm/Alpe di Siusi of the Dolomites. We went up the ski lift/gondola to this point so that Patrick and Brandon could ride down on sled run (check out a video of them here). Yes, a 2km sled run! It was so crazy fun, they did it twice while I stayed at the top and took some pictures of the gorgeous mountains and valley.

The Dolomites are the Austrian alps region of Italy... The primary language is German, the food is more German, and all of the signs are in both German and Italian. It's a measure of how far my Italian has come that I preferred speaking Italian over German. We enjoyed these amazing peaks and want to go back for more!