When you travel sometimes the weather doesn’t cooperate. When that happens you either make the best of it or cry in your beer. Today we were in Barga, Italy in the rugged mountains of northern Tuscany. It poured most of the day and we decided to get out anyway. It turned out we had one of the most enjoyable experiences of the trip.
If you every find yourself near Lucca, Pisa or even Florence, this beautiful and quite part of Tuscany is worth a visit. Especially if you’re tired of the crush of tourists in the major Italian cities. You won’t be disappointed.
I shot the photo above on the streets of Central Barga which dates back to the 1400s. I shot the car first walking one direction and didn’t think much of it. Then on the way back I saw it again from a different angle. Liking this much better I grabbed a quick shot. Sometimes looking at a subject from a different angle can make all the difference.
I saw this snappily dressed guy with the older woman out of the corner of my eye as they walked past. I immediately thought they’d make a nice subject and was pleased to see them outside this building while walking back. This was a quick hip shot that I thought would work best in black and white.
Here are a few other photos from the streets of Barga to give you a sense of this cool little town.
One of the most serendipitous moments was when we asked our hotel for directions to a winery 22 miles away. Normally this is a pretty short drive, but we were in a very mountainous region with very windy roads and it was raining like the devil. So the suggested a place just 5km away and called to schedule an appointment. We thought that was odd because at all the other wineries we’ve visited (and there are many) you just show up.
We jumped in the car and arrived at Podere Concori a few minutes later. We were greeted by the owner Gabriele Da Prato and our personal tour guide Alina. What a treat.
Alina, a former Vatican guide, speaks perfect English and showed us around like we were family. She’s a master story teller who brought the story of Gabriele’s vineyard and his organic winemaking process to life. Later they served us a sampling of real Tuscan food and each of their wines. Then when Gabriele learned that I was a photographer, he asked me to shoot some photos of him as he mixed up (there’s a technical term for this but I’ve already forgotten) their most recent batch of Syrah. I forgot to mention that we visited in the middle of harvest season and they had just made the first batch of their 2015 a few days earlier.
The Podere Concori property is absolutely beautiful. This photo taken from the vineyard of the mountains across the valley doesn’t do it justice. I purposely brought only a Fuju X100s with a fixed 23mm lens on this trip. This is the only time I wished that I had a wide angle with me.
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