The woodcutter and the Abbey

Hi Everybody! It's been a while since my last post here... The fact is, I've been touring across Italy for the last two months, almost nonstop, leading many workshops in some of the most beautiful places of my marvelous country. I've been in Tuscany twice, three times in Cinque Terre and other locations of the Ligurian coasts, and then Piedmont (which also included a quick trespass to Savoy in France), Aosta Valley, the Dolomites in Veneto and Trentino Alto Aldige, and then the wonderful island of Sardinia... It's been an amazing tour in which I had the opportunity of making new friends and meeting again old ones.

Now I should have an entire month off, phew!

I hope I will have enough time to process at least some of the 7518 pics I came back with!

I should follow a method for processing so many pictures and the idea was to start from the beginning, which was in Tuscany. I will try to follow that in the next posts, but this picture came out so well and I could not resist.

This is the Sacra di San Michele, an incredibly old Benedictine Abbey, built on top of a rocky spur (Mount Pirchiriano) right at the entrance of the Susa Valley, one of the longest and widest valleys in the Western Alps in Piedmont. The history of the Abbey, which is now considered the monument symbol of the region of Piedmont, started with the construction of a small chapel in the VI century, but the actual shape of the monument dates to the XI-XIII century, when the main buildings and the church were built.

This is a magical place, and one of my favourite among those in a range of 30 minutes from home - yes, I live quite close to it! Of course I've been shooting here countless times, and finding new angles might sound a bit troublesome, for me. However we never know what the future will hold for us next time: this time, it brought me... a tree cut! Which opened a completely new view on the abbey from the Sentiero dei Franchi, the 2000 years old trail included in the picture. This is a clear example, in my opinion, that it's always worth to regularly visit our favourite places. You never know, the woodcutter could be there, working for you, right now! 🤣