japanese gardens, palermo

These are actually from last November when I got back to the japanese gardens in Palermo, serenely beautiful little oasis in the middle of the parks area of the city. I could have spent all day there.

I found this cool effect on my camera which isolates the colour of your choice and takes the rest of the photo in black and white, the results were quite interesting with the striking red bridges, blue sky and green foliage to choose from.

mini-invasion

I saw my first couple of rhino beetles troddling clumsily down the road today whilst on my travels.

I remember when I was here last time there was an outbreak of them in the Summer of near-biblical proportions - you had to be careful where you stepped they were literally everywhere! Wonder if it'll happen again this year.

Anyway I'll try and take a half-decent pic of the miniature-monsters to post here ...

long exposures from new years eve

This is the view from the cincho (its like a miniature house at the back of the garden) looking back towards Alejandros mums house, where we spent new year.

Everyone waiting with baited breath for the food to arrive!


We managed to get up on the roof at midnight for the fireworks which turned out to be like a 360 degree show, things exploding all over the place which was ace! Pretty hard to get a decent photo though.



Here you can see the view looking over the rooftops of adjacent houses and across the road towards our apartment.




Salud!


I like the decoration on this tree, with the long exposure it almost looks like its on fire.