Venice -- those buildings though

My first time to Italy was during the summer of 2004. This was when I learned how much I enjoy architecture and design. Venice's architecture throughout the city is absolutely stunning. Even the buildings that look simple at first, seem to have something special about it if you look closely. I love shapes and details around windows... the colors... the arches... everything. One building is as gorgeous as the next.

The Doges Palace (Palazzo Ducale):

BRUGES, BELGIUM

I really enjoyed our day-trip to Bruges from Brussels. The train was a couple hours and super easy.

Bruges is very walk-able and such a cute, quaint city.

Below are some photos from walking through the city... I liked the buildings' colors and architecture a lot!

Momers!

We also walked into this gorgeous church:

walking around Brussels...

Brussels is a nice city... although I'm glad we had time to also go to Bruges for a day-trip... it is nice to be able to see such different parts of Belgium! I'd like to get back some day and see more. Below are photos taken while we were out and about in Brussels:

Reading and enjoying the sunshine  : )

Cute...

I love this street art!

The flowers and buildings are equally gorgeous...

(one end of the Grand Plaza...)

Madrid's city buildings

Madrid's city buildings are gorgeous. I really enjoyed the architecture of this city.

Look at those entrances!!

The next three photos were all taken on Gran Via - the main road of the city... and where my hotel was located!

Well, I've never seen THREE palaces within on plaza... but this is the case in Plaza de Cibeles in Madrid. Amazing. The palace shown in the photo below is the most impressive of the three (in my opinion)... and, funny enough, this building apparently started out as the postal service's headquarters! This palace is Cybele Palace but used to be known as The Palace of Communications (Comunicaciones) until 2011.

A view back towards Gran Via (as I am heading to Retiro Park)... and Linares Palace can be seen on the left (...this plaza's second palace of three... crazy).

Barcelona's stylin'

I really enjoyed walking through the city of Barcelona and looking at the beautiful buildings. The architecture spanned multiple centuries and it is all mixed into one city. Gorgeous. Below are some of my favorites.

walking tour of Milan

Below are some random photos of the city while we walked around a bit...

This is La Scala - the opera house in Milan...

...And my favorite from the day...  : )

workin' on the prefettura

Before coming to Italy, I had a lot of paperwork to get done in order to get a work visa. That part of the paperwork was called the nullaosta.

Now that I am in Italy, there is more to do! A group of us from school went to an office in the city the other day... now working for the prefettura.

The office was in a gorgeous building... (I hope I never get tired of the pretty styles and great architecture in this country).

Then a couple days later we went to the post office to send this part of the paperwork to Rome.

...Getting there ...getting there.