Monday, April 4, 2011

Springtime in Italy

The Spring is by far my favorite season in Italy.  The Italian countryside is just gorgeous and so vibrant with all the colors.  Italians LOVE flowers and that was one of the first things I noticed about Italy – everyone here has flowers.  Most houses have at least a couple window boxes full of flowers and most yards are beautifully landscaped with flowers of that season.  Our neighborhood is a perfect example.  Since the weather has been so nice here lately (high 60’s almost every day and sunny), I’ve been wanting to get out and shoot the neighborhood.  I finally took Abbie for a walk one afternoon and took pictures of the neighborhood flowers.  Abbie obviously enjoyed the walk because every day since then she’s been asking “Heppa mommy see fowers?”  She’s cute.

This is our neighbors front yard.  He does a great job with his flowers and changes them all out a couple times a year.  I LOVE the colors of these!

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Another neighbor has a HUGE hydrangea bush, that I just notice they completely trimmed down.  But now it’s getting large buds on it again.  I wish I was going to be here to see it bloom.

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Roses are big over here.  Ours aren’t blooming at all yet, but these ones were.

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I don’t know what these flowers are, but they smell good and they’re really pretty.  They’re cascading down another neighbors fence.

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These are pretty, but I was mainly just playing with my camera.

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Abbie loves smelling the flowers.  She’s funny because it doesn’t matter what she smells, she’ll take a big sniff of it and say “MMMM.”  And she points at all the flowers and says “Oh piddy!”  (Pretty)

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This tree is what I wanted to take pictures of mostly, but by the time I got around to it, half of the flowers had fallen off already and the ones still on the tree were wilted.  But I still think it’s beautiful.  I thought it was a cherry blossom, but friends here have been calling them tulip trees.  Anyone know what type of tree this is?IMG_2046IMG_2042IMG_2047IMG_2048

A little old lady tends to this huge garden.  She spends a LOT of time in it during the summer, and I saw her out there getting it ready to plant a few times.  Or maybe she’s already planted it, I’m not sure.  But I love all the daffodils around it, and I saw a few tulips also.

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Here’s the road leading to our house.

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I just can’t get enough of this weather!  Hopefully Abbie and I don’t get sick when we go back to the States.  It’ll be at least a 30 degree temp difference, if not more.  I’m going to try to bring some Springtime weather home with me.  We’ll see how that goes!

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6 comments:

Damsel said...

Those flowers are gorgeous! I can't wait to see those types of things when we move to Sicily this summer.

I think the white ones on the fence might be honeysuckle. When I went to school in Mexico, I walked by a fence like that everyday to get to class, and the smell was just heavenly! I wanted to bury my face in it ... but there were bees!!

Thanks for sharing your photos!

Em said...

I can tell you that the tree is definitely NOT a tulip tree, as that is something else entirely. I think it's a magnolia.

Rachel said...

The 10 day forecast after today all has temps above 60 so you guys might be ok with that if it stays the way it's supposed to!! Can't wait to see you! also i think Em is right i think it's a magnolia tree!

Anonymous said...

LOVE Spring here just not what it does to my poor nose.

Brittney said...

I googled tulip tree and clicked on images and there were some of those trees. I think they have different ones, because there are also other pictures as well. I don't think it's a magnolia because they don't have the amazing smells that a magnolia does. We've got one at the end of our street, so pretty.

Lynne said...

That's a magnolia tree. Had one in the backyard growing up. Very pretty!

Can't wait til you come home and we get to meet for real this time, and do girly/crafty/horsey/puppy things!