Another Way to Display Vacation Photos

Roughly 10 years ago, I bought coasters that could hold photos and have never used them. I've been meaning to put photos in them since I moved to my apartment nearly 2 years ago.

After my Ireland trip, I thought it would be neat to use pictures from my trip to personalize the coasters. It was hard to pick four pictures and even harder to choose how to crop them. I decided on two picture from my Ireland trip and two from my Italy trip (2012).

The top two photos are of Ireland. The top left photo is outside Ross Castle and the top right photo is of the harbor in Dingle. The bottom two pictures were taken in Cinque Terre. I really love how they turned out!

What creative way have you found to display your vacation photos?

Italy Part Three

Our first full day in Cinque Terre, we travelled a few minutes to the furthest of the towns. Riomaggiorre. They had beautiful rose bushes, lemon trees, and olive trees. We walked through the town and then took the trail to walk to Manarola.

It was a short, but very scenic walk to Manarola.

Along the walk there was a spot that lovers from Riomaggiore and Manarola met.

I had breakfast, a berry crostata, midway through the hike on the edge of a cliff.
Next was breath-taking Manarolo.

I loved the little shops in the towns. What was neat about Cinque Terre is that we saw a lot of the same tourists exploring in the little towns.
After Manarolo, I took a train to Corniglia. The best views where in Corniglia. Unfortunately, there was a 1,000 stair climb to get to the actual town. The views and gelato were worth the climb. I read in my Rick Steve's guidebook, that a little shop there had miel (honey) gelato. It was wonderful and refreshing. Here, I took my favorite picture of my entire trip!
I hope to go back someday!

Italy Part Two

Cinque Terre was the place in Italy I most wanted to go. I researched it and knew I'd love it and I did. It's a series of 5 towns, some along cliffs and some on the ocean. I was the most peaceful part of the trip. Away from the craziness of city life. The cities are a few minutes away from each other via train or you can hike to most the cities. Less than a year before, several or the towns had been devastated by mudslides. I read the accounts, some residents even died and businesses went out of business. Each town is fairly tiny, but picturesque. We stayed in the largest of the five, Monterosso, my favorite. We loved eating at Miky's Cantina. It was slightly cold while we were there, so we didn't have much beach time. It was also the only of the five that had a beach.

We stayed there two nights. I wished it would've been longer. We arrived mid-afternoon and checked out Monterosso. Once we'd checked out Monterosso we went to nearby Vernazza. Vernazza was hard hit by the mudslides. It had beautiful ocean views.