Putignano

This is the countryside near Putignano, in Apulia, Italy. I took this pictures near an old country house in the middle of a large cultivation of olive trees, during a trip in the Turi and Putignano zone of Apulia. There was a storm approaching and the sky was very dark, in contrast with the light colors of the house stones. In this zone there are very ancient olive trees, with contorted and incredibily beautiful trunks.

Prepotto, Trieste

Prepotto is a small village north of Trieste, in the Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Its position is really near to Slovenia boundary, in a borderland named “Carso” where Italian and Slovenian cultures are mixed up. I shoot this photo near a so called “Osmiza”, a place where people can consume local product directly from the local farm. This is a very long-standing tradition and go back even to Charlemagne, in Middle Age, when Byzantines leaves this territories to the Frankish Empire and an ordinance allowed the winemakers to sell wine directly to people advising this activity with an ivy branch. Even today you can locate an open Osmiza by looking at the ivy branches hanged nearby, and you can also foresee if the Osmiza just opened observing if the branch is still green or withered.

Pompeii Road

This is one of the main road to the ancient city of Pompeii near Naples, in Italy. The stones are very eroded due to the time and centuries of wagon's passages. It always a strange sensation walk on the same stones of the ancient Romans, 2000 years ago. Here the life has suddenly stopped when, in the year 79 AD the city was mostly destroyed and buried under 4 to 6 m (13 to 20 ft) of volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.