ROME: ON FILM

LOOKING OUT ACROSS Rome from the Giardino degli Aranci, a carefully-tended orange garden at the top of the Aventine Hill, the sun casts a faded, hazy film over the landscape. Its shades and tones are muted, creating the illusion that instead of admiring the undulating terrain of the Eternal City, you’re looking at a beautiful - yet threadbare - stage mural. It’s fitting too, because even up close Rome is like one big theatre set.

A stroll from piazza to piazza may uncover an unexpected stage ‘prop’: a remnant of an ancient marble column here, an ornate fountain there. And the colours of the buildings on winding cobbled streets provide the perfect mise en scène: warm oranges, yellows and every shade of pink from cherry blossom to dusky rose.

NYC I: UPPER WEST SIDE & UPPER EAST SIDE

NEW YORK CITY had always been on my travel wish-list, but with years of being preoccupied with various European cities I'd never really made any firm plans to go there in the foreseeable future. Instead I admired it from afar, watching endless movies set in the city: Breakfast at Tiffany's, Home Alone 2, Rear Window - which doesn't really count since it was filmed on a set, but hey ho - to name but a few (the list is endless*).

It was coming up to my 30th and I was all ready to 'just have a quiet one' but ended up being 'persuaded' into spending it in the Big Apple. From the get go my eyes were sparkling and there was a a New York soundtrack whirring away in my mind**. Everything was big and bold: the skyscrapers, the store fronts, the thick New Ywork accents and the portions of food.

POSTCARD FROM MAY 4TH 2014: BOLTON CASTLE

... where I got engaged (literally right after I took this photograph!) after a walk looping from the castle to Aysgarth Falls and back.

Here is the walk we did

Happy engagement anniversary, M!