Discover San Marino in just 2 minutes

San Marino Castles at Sunrise are Breathtaking

If you ever have the chance of visiting the area of Rimini, Marche in Italy, do stop by and visit San Marino.

A panorama is always the best way of showing a landscape in full view

This republic that is the oldest republic of Italy, is completely independent. It has been marked as a Unesco World Heritage site and therefore you can expect nothing more but the best of what our ancestors have left us.

A View of San Marino

The views on the top of the mountain, where 3 separate castles have been build are so amazing. The mountain is protrudes from the landscape with a staggering hight of 749 meters. Especially during autumn sunrises can you catch breathtaking views, with misty valleys around you, that are hundreds of meters lower than where you stand.

Before the Sunrise

San Marino has 3 castles

If you climb the hill of San Marino you will see that on the west side, facing the Adriatic Sea, you will have 3 castles on the mountain tops.

The middle castle is the most photogenic, and can be shot from the 1st Castle.

The 3rd castle is closed and has no entrance. The position is amazing though, overlooking the south of Italy with beautiful mountain ranges all around

Sunrise at the medieval pathway

Dragons path into Autumn at San Marino

Visit San Marino

The country of San Marino offers great photogenic moments for you as a photographer to capture. The best moments are during sunrise and sunset.

The best moments are i believe during autumn/ winter when the leaves color brown and yellow and the surrounding landscape is covered in a misty hue.

Love these Autumn moments in Italy. Colors everywhere!

Another great spot, with the 1ste castle on the background, just when the sun began to rise in San Marino

Christmas market closed on a cold but clear morning at San Marino

Traveling in Italy in 2021 - Part I

Hot summer days, crickets that call for the night, Roman buildings, statues, churches and of course the best food in the world: We are going to Italy! With my girlfriend we head off down south from the Netherlands end of July ( not the best time for Italy, but we had no other choice).

1. Dolomite’s

The first stop are the Dolomite’s. The best part of the Alps with rock formation ready to touch the sky and showing them selfs all around the scenery. We hiked around the Puez-Geisler Nature Park, to get a close look at those tops. Before the hike, we stopped at this little church in the fields beneath the Puez-Geisler Nature Park.

The cute little church of San giovanni in ranui, Tirol

Unfortunately, clouds where playing with us so we where not treated with the view we where hoping for, but it was beautiful nevertheless:

The hike to Puez-Geisler Nature Park

Hiking Dolomite’s

When even we go out for a hike, we find places to shoot, to rest and to enjoy

Due to MEGA thunderstorms and the worst weather during our stay in Dolomite’s, we had to go down south to find shelter from those storms. We came to find a nice castle with the name Castle Trostburg . This castle, like so many in the green valleys of Dolomite’s, is situated on a rocky cliff that overlooks both sides of the Valley and is close to the city of Bozen. Its occupied by some lovely old folks, that can give you a tour inside the castle. As we were late and just minutes before all hell broke lose, we decided to just look a round and shoots some nice moody pictures before the thunder would strike.

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The ‘Burg’ just before the storm

The medieval castle

I love it when a moody picture can be created by weather, light and its scenery

2. Bologna

Ok, lets continue our journey into Bologna. A student city, full of nice historical buildings, like the 2 large towers and some pretty cool cathedrals ( to be found all over Italy). We choose to get the best view over the city and try to catch a sunset so the city would show great lights and colors. This wasn’t the case; the thunderstorms in the far north of Italy, where now finding their way more down south and we took them with us.

But still, we managed to capture the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca from a distance with my 100-400mm lens:

A view on the sunset with the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca in the middle

3. Vernazza Cinque Terre

Some days later we skipped town and went for staying on a camping, up in the mountains. We decided to visit the Cinque Terre national Park. Hard to get little fisher towns with a cute look and with come nice restaurants.

4. Firenze

Being not too big of a city fanatic, I must give credits to the Governance of Firenze ( Florence). They did an amazing job for citizens and tourists that want to visit this big city in the Tuscany region. The city is so rich of history, with the world famous Duomo, and Ponte Veccio, being its eye catcher. Don’t skip this place! Especially for people that want to have a perfect view on the old town you can go to piazzale Michelangelo. A bit higher than the city, you can catch a breathtaking sunset during the summer in Firenze. We really enjoyed walking around the Duomo, eating some Gelato and seeing the sun going down on the Ponte Veccio.

the best time to capture the Duomo; during blue hour

After visiting Florence for 2 nights, where we slept in a very cute little place found on booking.com and who’s owner was German ( great host), we moved further down south.

Driving through all the different Provinces of Italy, we have reach our current most southern ‘state’: Campania. Weather has been quite a challenge for us during this trip: leaving The Netherlands, when it was 20 degrees, we arrived in Tirol, when it was a nice sunny day, but soon after, all hell broke loose. On the camping in the mountains, temperatures dropped to 15 degrees and 2 days later, when we left for Firenze, the level rose to 35degrees. The south of Napoli was the worst. Not only did we not like the city ( one of the dirtiest city’s i’ve ever visited in the world - and i’ve been to many), here the sun was burning and got us very tired; 40 degrees where measured.

perfect details of this alfa-romeo in front of the view on the Duomo. Does it say Italy all over the place?

5. Abruzzo

For a couple of nights, we found a great town to rest, do some sightseeing around and find some ‘real’ Italian cuisine and culture. Isola del Liri. From here we discovered Abruzzo. What an amazing country side! From high mountains, to low fields, ice cold mountain rivers, waterfalls, wine estates and many more beautiful old towns, roads and nature.

This area is phenomenal with so much to look at; moon, lake, sunset, village, mountains; this is lake Barrea

Whilst driving to the Lake of Barrea, we found ourself mesmorised by an old town, situated on a slope. Driving there was pretty cool, we turned around to find the right spot for the picture of an undergoing sun. Little did we know that on the whole road, there was no real good point of view towards the town. We walked a bit down, saw a huge dear staring at us with less then 15 meters and after we finally saw the town, we realised its not a good place for pictures. the results :

The town on the slope

Great light that is so much better with the eye than on print

On another lake we found, for Alla’s shoot, I found a beautiful white cat, enjoying the late night summer warmth on a bale of hay.

White cat on a hey bale in Pesca, Frosinone

6. Amalfi

I am all about nature, landscapes and small towns. Now having seen Cinque Terre, what for me was a bit of a disappointment during high-season ( yes I know, my bat), we decided to give the Amalfi Coast a try, also, because Napoli was a disaster for us: The city is disgusting.
Pompei could have been a nice place, if it wasn’t for the 40 degrees outside and the Green Pass obligation ( no we don’t take a vaccin, just because your government says so - sponsored by the Big Pharmaceuticals), so our luck was found in the Amalfi coast.

Looking towards Amalfi. Isn’t it just beautiful?

There is a point on the road to Amalfi, that you can use as a perfect place for shooting your cityscape shots. Its a restaurant of the hotel Luna.

Does it get more nostalgic and breathtaking than this?