A quick trip to Venice.

I is for Italy

My father suggested I study Spanish in college.

The view from my room in Florence.

I wanted to learn something different. I studied Spanish in high school. After a few classes, I thought I needed to study Italian in Florence, Italy. Italy made perfect sense to me.

While some of the art and culture were wasted on my youth, the experience of meeting new people, learning how to live in a larger city and negotiating one’s way around another country was not.

My constant companion on the trip was my camera and a supply of film. I snapped away like a crazed tourist whether in Florence, Rome, Venice, Sienna, Pisa or Sicily — that’s my S for the A to Z Challenge.

I hope to see Italy again, but I hesitate thinking there are new places to visit and so little time. Of course, Italy would be a different experience two decades later. I doubt today’s me could be coaxed into a bikini this time, but who knows travel opens us to new adventures.

Italy whet my appetite for travel as well as Nutella.

My first day trip in Italy was a quick visit to the Leaning Tower of Pisa