Les Jardins du Luxembourg is the garden of the French Senate, which is itself housed in the Luxembourg Palace. The Palace was designed for Marie de Médicis, mother of king Louis XIII of France. Marie de Médicis desired to make a building similar to her native Florence’s Palazzo Pitti which, coincidentally, we visited during our visit in Italy. The garden is largely devoted to a green parterre of gravel and lawn populated with statues and provided with large basins of water where children sail model boats.

The garden contains just over a hundred statues, monuments, and fountains, scattered throughout the grounds. Surrounding the central green space are about twenty figures of historical French queens and female saints, standing on pedestals.

Our first stop in Italy was Florence or as the Italians call the former capital of the Kingdom of Italy, Firenze.

Housed inside a palace designed during the Medici rule as offices for Florentine magistrates, hence the name, uffizi, is one of the oldest and most reknowned art museums in Europe and, indeed, the world. Over the years, further parts of the palace evolved into a display place for many of the paintings and sculpture collected by the Medici family or commissioned by them. Here, outside the Uffizi, a street performer dresses up as one of the many statues found on the walls of the museum.

After the house of Medici was extinguished, the art treasures remained in Florence; it formed one of the first modern museums. The gallery had been open to visitors by request since the sixteenth century, and in 1765 it was officially opened to the public. Here an artist sits outside, offering a selection of his own artwork.

Classical guitar fills the plaza by the Uffizi.

We encountered a remarkable number of musicians and performers throughout Italy. Here is one eccentric example.

The Arno riverside in Florence.

The apartments lining the river were rather picturesque.

After celebrating mass in Italian at the Basilica of Santa Croce, where we were so fortunate to see the tombs of Galileo, Michelangelo, and Machiavelli, we stopped by for our first taste of Italian espresso and prosciutto.

Being American.

The view from Giotto’s bell tower at the Duomo of Florence, the city’s cathedral. The basilica is one of Italy’s largest churches, and until the modern era, the dome was the largest in the world. It remains the largest brick dome ever constructed.

Caricature artists outside the Duomo where one can make out the green and pink polychrome marble panels on the cathedral’s exterior.

Before arriving in Florence, none of us had actually thought to make any concrete plans as to what we might visit and do while in the capital of the Tuscan country. Justine, pictured here holding high her cone of gelato, decided to grab her copy of Frommer’s Europe from $85 a Day and lead us fearlessy through the first half of our tour of Italy.

Mopeds and bikes were everywhere. What really amazed me were the meticulously dressed italians in their perfectly tailored suits and their brilliantly polished shoes cruising around town on two-wheels.

We had the fortune of attending Papal audience on Wednesday morning. We were no more than 15 feet away from His Holiness. We had all purchased trinkets from various street vendors before the audience in order to get them blessed. Told that the blessing would occur at the end of the audience, we all began taking out our rosaries, crucifixes, and such from our bags when the crowd began to disperse. Don’t they want things blessed, I asked myself. Apparently, I am told, the blessing occured while we were removing our items from their bags. I hope His Holiness made sure to bless things in bags as well.

A large rotating globe from within the Vatican Museums which displays works from the immense collection built up by the Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries.

The Museums is home to the Sistine Chapel.

The Cathedra Petri, latin for Chair of Saint Peter, is a cathedra, which is the chair of a bishop, preserved in St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome, enclosed in a gilt bronze casing that was designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and executed 1647–53. The cathedra in Saint Peter’s Basilica was once used by the popes. Like many medieval reliquaries that took the form of the relic they protected, it is in the form of a chair.

I had the incredible opportunity to celebrate mass in the Basilica, not 10 feet from the entrance to the crypt where the body of Saint Peter rests.

Taken from inside the Colosseum, Stephanie remarked at this scene’s recollection of the empty tomb of Easter.

Like ivy growing up old university walls, the city of Rome has slowly crept around its ancient remains.

Next to the Colosseum is the Roman Forums which lays mostly in ruin.

The forum served as a city square and central hub where the people of Rome gathered for justice, and faith.

The forum was also the economic hub of the city and considered to be the center of the Republic and Empire.

A gorgeous building by the Spanish steps.

A little bateau to greet us as we wait in line for tickets to climb the Eiffel Tower. As luck would have it, we got into line fifteen minutes too late and watched helplessly as they closed the top level of the Parisien icon. To this day, I have yet to surmount the third level of the tower.

This was taken next to the lift in the tower itself. The rusted metal and the chipped white paint caught my eye and though my lens was wide open as the depth of field is razor-thin, an eerie darkness pervades the photo which was a pleasant surprise.

One of the better shots of Paris from the second section of the tower. In the back near the center, one can make out the western facade of the Notre Dame Cathedral.

I’ve been drinking wine like water since arriving in France.

The five of us took an early metro to one of the many morning markets which line the Parisien streets. The variety of colors and textures were remarkable.

Having reviewed and uploaded my pictures, I am immediately overcome by a craving for strawberries.

This stencil grafitti was found not far from the market we visited… and the strawberries I should have purchased.

This picture was taken at a fountain on our way to Les Jardins du Luxembourg. I imagine the horses are green from oxydized copper which must have once been a brilliant spectacle.

Outside the Pantheon in Paris, where one finds the tombs of the likes of Voltaire, Rousseau, Dumas, and Hugo, sits artists capturing on paper the streets of Paris as the Tower lurks in the background. I am told that the Eiffel Tower was greeted and is still considering by many Parisiens as an eyesore to an otherwise very classically designed city. Having now taken my time to visit the grandiose palaces and churches of old along with the history manifested within each, I do not find this seemingly hautine sentiment too outrageous.

From within the Pantheon, a dear friend adorns a classic red trenchcoat as, perhaps, a Parisien might.

Students of architecture study the design of a small church just outside the Pantheon.

Like water around these parts.

The ceiling of a side room within the northern tower of the Notre Dame Cathedral.

The first of several shots taken of the reknowned gargoyles of Notre Dame.

Pensive, is he not ?

And another.

The southern portal on the western facade of the cathedral is flanked by statues of saints and royal figures. Here stands an unidentified king.

Ellen in an obligatory University of Notre Dame shirt in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral.

The cieling of the room designed to host guests in Saint Chapelle, the royal chapel built by Saint Louis during his reign. The chapel was once home to relics of the thorn of crowns and of the true cross before their destruction during the French Revolution.

The spire of Saint Chapelle looms in the background of this shot of a lamppost.

Shakespeare and Company, an independent bookstore located in the 5th arrondissement in Paris’s Left Bank, serves as both a bookstore and a reading library, specializing in English-language literature. The bookstore also houses young writers, known as “tumbleweeds,” who earn their keep by working in the shop for a couple of hours each day.

The store’s original location was once home to artists of the “Lost Generation,” such as Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, George Antheil, Man Ray and James Joyce. The original store, however, was closed during the first World War during German occupation. Pictured here is a typewriter patrons use to leave each other notes and well-wishes.

The current location is named in honor of the original store. Here is what looks to be a hole in the ground… into which people have thrown their pennies… and a copy of Eliot’s poems.

Outside sits an inscription of an excerpt taken from an interview with the current location’s owner.

The Seine has an uncanny perfection in its carefully formed waves. The way in which the sunset glitters across its surface remains a nostalgic homoge to the French impressionist artists.

Lucas and I decided to go roam around Portland’s markets on Saturday but stopped in the Pearl District for lunch. There’s an excellent place on 22nd Avenue to which Liz introduced me last summer, Elephants Delicatessen. All the food is local and made from scratch daily. Pictured here is a stack of baguettes by the boulangerie section.

An array of lights met us as we left the delicatessen.

After a bit of driving around, we finally decided on the Portland Saturday Market where a collection of performers, artists, and local eateries come out to showcase some of Portland’s finest. Pictured here is a set of columns we ran across just before the market entrance.

We were skeptical, at first, of two hacky sack players thinking they were were going to be talented enough to garner tips but they were incredibly entertaining and the we were, as the crowds were, thoroughly pleased.

One of the two streets which divides the market area.

Pictured here is a line of street performers and a man promising to teach us how to live with youth.

The market featured incredible artistry and craftsmanship.

As we were on our way out, I spied a group of red-clad drum-case carrying musicians. We stopped to see what they were up to and this is when I was introduced to the Loyd Family Players from Oakland, California.

The Players is a 8 to 14 piece non-traditional bateria who lays down real groove with a thick mix of rhythms from all over the world combining elements of samba, hip-hop, funk, heavy metal, dancehall, and reggae.

They travel the world as group of family and friends, enjoying each others’ company, creating music and smiles, meeting people, connecting with the locals. I am always inspired by people who seem to have found this love for life that they seem to have, a true, unbridled sense of passion and what it is to live with passion.

Willow took me to a fantastic tea shop called Tea Chai Té on 23rd Avenue in Portland. The aroma of tea ingredients used in the made-from-scratch teas fills the upstairs of an renovated house into which the shop is built. In this picture is a cabinet of the ingredients.

One of my favorite restaurants on 23rd is a Thai restaurant called Tyhpoon. Pictured here is a small bowl of Tom Yum Goong, a delightful lemongrass soup with a local albeit not exactly micro-brew, Widmer’s Hefeweizen, hanging out in the background.

Pictured here in Tea Chai Té is my dear friend who Liz who agreed to exploring Northwest Portland with me.

While Liz was looking for a parking space, I stumbled across the Whole Foods Market in the Pearl District and caught this particular reminder of my phenomenal, though fleeting summer days.

We stopped by Powell’s Books, whose Portland headquarters is the largest independent new and used bookstore in the world. The store holds 1.6 acres of stores space, claims an inventory of four million books, and buys on average 3000 used books per day. In this picture is a clever bike rack in front of the store. While I was taking this picture, in fact, several others reached for their cameras to do the same.

A shot taken from inside the Whole Foods Market.

Nectarines from the Whole Foods Market.

I almost didn’t take this picture. Liz suggested me to and I took a few shots as we were leaving. It reminded her of her time spent in Italy and me of the book, Everything is Illuminated.