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Villa Medici  is a gorgeous structure, complete with formal gardens and majestic views of Rome. It's situated just above the famous Spanish Steps and it's the current location of my childhood friend's restoration job. She is in charge of cleaning and fixing and restoring marble statues, stucco, murals, and gesso (and more) within the villa. It was such an awesome private tour of this villa and her job site! I can't wait to go back to explore even more... we only had a few hours to roam around the property this time... not enough! ;) Here are some images of those few hours at Villa Medici, in Rome.

Doors are beautiful to me. Especially if they are old. When I see them, I imagine the thousands of hands that may have pushed them open and shut them closed, throughout the years, decades, centuries. This is a collection of doors I came across in my last trip to Italy. Specifically, these doors are from towns in Umbria and Latium and Tuscany. I might just order one big poster of this for our home's foyer! 

Orvieto is a small burg in the hills of the Italian region of Umbria. It began, like most towns in the area, as an Etruscan village. It became, throughout the ages, Roman, Medieval and then "modern". Not much of the architecture has changed, however. Orvieto maintains it's position of power, atop a flat bluff made of solidified volcanic ash (called tuff - which is what 90% of the geology of the area is made of). The views from the town are beautiful: the Umbrian valley can be seen in it's undulating hills of colorful and varied crops. I love this part of my country. It's inspiring and it always leaves me in awe. Orvieto was new to me ... even if I am Italian, there are places in Italy that I have yet to visit! My best friend Michelle went to Italy with me, this time around. She was the one to convince me to take this day-trip. I am so glad we did! Here are a few images from our excursion (many images were taken with my iPhone - and are not posted here, and 3 h...

Back in May of 2012, I travelled to my home town of Rome (and visited Umbria which is where my parents have a home). I was there for 2 week, visiting family and friends. It had been 9 years since I was there last. You can only imagine the tears of joy flowing from my eyes when I landed and began to hear Italian being spoken all around me. As this 2012 year coms to an end, I feel that collages of highlights of travels and shoots we've had the pleasure of taking part of, must be posted... so many memories to share with you! To see much larger images of many more details of my trip to Italia, please click on this link.

Part 2 of 2 of my trip to Italy is here. This set includes Rome as well. ( Part 1 is here  and here is a blurb/introduction about my trip as written in Part 1: I had the opportunity to visit my country (Italy) this past May 14th to 25th 2012, after nine long years of absence. Almost one decade away from any place, makes it for a very exciting and emotional time. Many things have changed in nine years, while traditions and foods and the beauty that is Italy, remained the same. I visited with all of my family members, had an amazing time around the region of Umbria (where my parents live and where I had never been) and loved revisiting my city (Rome) and my town (Bracciano). Thanks for looking! <3 Train station, Roma Termini, Rome Scenes from the train station, Roma Termini, Rome

My absence from the MoscaPhoto blogging world is justified, I promise. I had the opportunity to visit my country (Italy) this past May 14th to 25th 2012, after nine long years of absence. Almost one decade away from any place, makes it for a very exciting and emotional time. Many things have changed in nine years, while traditions and foods and the beauty that is Italy, remained the same. I visited with all of my family members, had an amazing time around the region of Umbria (where my parents live and where I had never been) and loved revisiting my city (Rome) and my town (Bracciano). I am really excited to show you a handful of my favorite images from my 9 day trip, and have decided to split the post up into two different ones (one per day) because I realized that even if I am picking a handful of favorites, I have WAY too many to post all at once :) My goal is to travel back to my home country more often, and to spread MoscaPhoto's reach there as well. There are many mon...

This is a little bit of a personal post. There's nothing wrong with being open and willing to share a bit of my own personal self with you too, right? ;) If any of you have read our about page here, you'll know that I was born in Roma and am an Italian citizen. Even if I've been in the awesome USA for 15 years, I love and miss Rome and when I decided to get my old album out of the shelf, I though to scan some of my old film images to show you here. I can't wait to go back to visit my family and friends and to take Josh with me too! Thanks for looking though this little slice of my world ;) <3 ~ Alice (ps: these are scans of regular 'ol 35mm 4x6 prints. they started off in color but had faded to something i wasn't happy with, so I applied a simple Sepia action to get them consistent. in case I have any technical people reading ;) Tarquinia