Sunday Walk – March 9, 2014

The other day was a brilliant day of warmth and sunshine, so I decided to try to walk up to the Castle and to the Renghera…or the second tower:

The Castle from Arco

Last year I showed you the walk up on another Sunday Walk last June.

As I got nearer the castle, I decided to take a break near a fountain and then do the last legs of the walk through the olive grove avoiding the paved path:

Through the olive groves

The fountain

This took me pretty close to the approach:

Nearing the approach

The approach from above

Finally the Castle proper…I actually took oodles of photos, so here I have to decide which ones to show for today…not easy!  But we’ll start from the lawn and go up to the Renghera, which was where a large bell used to be housed, and was used to call people to  harvest or into the castle if an enemy was approaching.  The valley below the Renghera is named after our river, Sarca and it is known as the Lower Sarca vally

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Hope you enjoyed this bit of a walk up to the highest tower of Arco’s Castle!

Have a great Sunday, Bastet!

Sunday Walk

Hello Everyone!

Today is not a day for a walk…again.  However, during the week we did have a good day, and I took some photos as I walked along the first leg of the bike/pedestrian path that leads to Torbole, and then on to Riva del Garda.  The last 2 pictures are of Riva and were taken a couple of weeks ago during the break in the rain…

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The written version of this post can be found on Bastet and Sekhmet’s Library!

Have a great day!

A Sunday Walk

Last night we went to Riva del Garda…where with my trusty poor Olympus I decided to take some photographs at midnight!  The photos are a little blurred perhaps…but I decided that I didn’t mind as this added a little bit of mystery to the photos.  Have a nice walk!

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Happy Yule-tide!  Bastet

Sunday Walk: Nefelibata

This morning, I thought we’d go cloud (nefelibata)…

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Have a wonderful Sunday!

Sunday Walk: December 1, 2013

My son, husband and I just got back from a walk through Arco’s Christmas market…and I thought I’d show you a few of the stalls!

Stockings and stuffers

This colorful stall really attracted my camera…and I do so love putting up stockings on my mantel!

Baked goods from Puglia

We don’t only have the typical products from Trentino when the Market opens…but the great traditional baked goods from Puglia…bread and taralli…heaven!

Roasted Chestnuts

There’s nothing like a bag full of hot roasted chestnuts as you’re walking through the Market.

Strauben

Or fried strauben…my son chose a plateful with Nutella on them.

Lanterns and candles

I love candles and these lanterns were really beautiful.  The one I highlighted here burns alcohol.

We’ll be seeing some more of the Market along with Christmas decorations in the future.  Hope you enjoyed this first glimpse.

Hope you’re having a great Sunday, I’ll be  seeing you tomorrow!  Ciao!

Sunday Walk: November 10, 2013

For today’s walk…we’ll go to  Lake Garda.  It’s afternoon and sunny, in so sunny that I had some difficulties with the lighting…there is such a thing as too much light!

The last of the tourists are pulling out, but there was a group of young German students visiting.  We were all in jackets, feeling the chill in the air, but these young people decided to do a little diving and swimming.  Their teachers though remained in their jackets 😉  The ducks and the swans just seemed to ignore them.

A Sunday Walk in Photography: A Rainy Day

Today is Sunday…and it’s raining, again, not really a day to go out for a walk.  Here let me show you what the world looks like outside my loggia this morning:

looking down

Well you can’t tell much from this I guess, so let’s look a little further up!

Courtyard

Walking down  to the center of town, we come first to the church, across from it is a fountain, and finally if we keep walking, there’s the kindergarten…and the caffè, which no respectable town in Italy, no matter how small, is without (but we can’t see it here).  I guess, we’ll just turn around and go back to my house passing  near a vineyard at this point!

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Have a nice Sunday!

A Sunday Walk: October 27, 2013

Just a stroll around the Church square of Arco…looking at the central park going towards the parking lot!

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Have a nice Sunday!  Ciao from Arco!

A Sunday Walk: October 20th 2013

This will not be one of our normal Sunday walks.  I’ve been doing some photo experimenting trying to figure out how to take moon shots and night shots with a “compact” digital camera.  I’ve got a Olympus f-46, and over these last few months I’ve been discovering more and more about its potential and qualities.  It isn’t an expensive professional reflex camera, and sometimes I have to process out defects, but I’m pretty sure that is because I’m not really expert at using the poor thing.  Anyway this has given me the opportunity to get some interesting off the wall photos, so who’s complaining!

The Moon over Arco

This was taken with my Nokia 202 on Thursday evening from the parking lot near the library where I do my English conversation meeting.

Now for the experiments!

This was the actual first photo, before and after processing:

Without processing

After processing

here is the second choice, here I’d changed the setting from a panorama without any adjustment to the aperture of the “diaphragm” to a “medium” opening, the unprocessed photo is in my opinion superior:

Second photo

Second photo processed

and here’s a third set…this time the opening was much wider, not at its maximum though…when I processed it I used the HDR app choice, interesting effect, after I toned it down a little:

Third photo without processing

third photo HDR app

Hope you enjoyed this brief walk through my night-time experiments.  I actually took a lot more photos which may come in handy for some future illustrations, in the meantime, I’ve learnt that with a tripod I can do night photos and playing with the settings augmenting the “aperture” and such can get some pretty bright photographs…sometime too bright!

Have a great Sunday!

Ciao, Bastet!

Sunday Walk: October 13, 2013

Hello world!

Yesterday we had the first warnings that alas winter is just around the door.  Here on Lake Garda, this is not as chilling as it may seem.  That large body of water, which of course makes our area a little humid along with the wooded areas all around our towns in this valley, keeps are area pretty snow free.  If you’ve been following my posts, you’ll have noticed palm, olive and lemon trees.  These won’t grow in any other area this far north…just too cold.

Later on we will get cold days…days that will go below zero celsius that is 32° F.  But they usually don’t stay there long, just long enough to guarantee that we have an apple crop because they won’t produce fruit without a cold snap!

Today I thought we’d look at what the world looked like yesterday.

The night had been a maelstrom of wind and rain, and I wasn’t sure what the dawn would bring…it brought sun into the valley though the mountains were still heavy with clouds.

Here’s dawn:

Mountain snow storm

the following photos were taken around 9:30 in the morning:

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The day continued to be sunny, windy and cold so the air was crisp and clear:

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Last night I tried to do a night shot…using a tripod with a candle light setting on my Olympus:

Arco by night!

Hope you enjoyed the walk and will have a lovely, warm Sunday!

Ciao!  Bastet