An off-beat view of Spain & Italy - 1

Cliché though it may sound, I am going ahead with my post-international-vacation travel post! 
Only it will not be a regular travel post that details all must - see/do/eat/shop kinda stuff!
Other websites and blogs devoted to imparting and sharing useful travel info are pretty rampant, so let me not try to steal or mislead their share of audiences with my feeble attempts at educating folks on these helpful or meaningful aspects!
Well, honestly speaking, I came up with the idea of this post, while sifting through the scores of pics I'd relentlessly clicked through my fortnight-long family vacation covering the cities of Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona, Florence and Rome.
My phone's (a venerable 4-year old Samsung Grande 2) overloaded memory had declared running out of storage space and I decided to relieve the aged-one of my numerous unwanted...err...aesthetic clicks! 
I was pretty puzzled as to the source of some pics, while many others I wondered at the motivation behind clicking them. 
Of course, my family helpfully supplied info on that aspect - 'Oh, this one? Don't you remember you were clicking this one while you got lost in La Rambla!' or 'This has to be while we were doing the guided city tour of Florence, when you went MIA almost as soon as the tour began!' with sniggers thrown in! 
Yes, I do tend to get distracted or is it attracted by the strangest sights! Typically if you show me a monument, I'll be looking at everything else besides it; whoever said you could only have ADHD kids...maybe I am one of those kids that grew up to be a mom! 
So after much deliberation and a li'l bit of ingenuity I managed to compartmentalize my random clicks into some semblance of logic.
I had options of bombarding FB, Insta, Twitter but I decided my blog would preserve these personal peeves till posterity!
So go ahead and join me on this whimsical and maybe quirky click trail from beautiful Spain and Italy!

Presenting the first series - FLORAL FANCY

Yes! Me love pretty flowers! Can't resist clicking 'em!

Enroute to Avila-Segovia from Madrid. 

 

A window flower-box in Avila.

Road divider in Madrid city.

 

 Oranges on trees are as beautiful as flowers aren't they? - At Valencia.

Street curb in the beautiful Spanish village - Barcelona.

 

White walls, blue potted flowers -Oh! So Mediterranean! 

Poble Espanyol - Spanish village - Barcelona.

 Super pretty isn't this? Spanish village, Barcelona

 Outside one of the boutiques of the Spanish village.

 Dainty flower boxes in tiny balconies in the Spanish village, Barcelona.

Pretty Cacti blooms for sale at La Rambla, Barcelona.

 A delightful nursery on La Rambla, Barcelona.

Nursery near the tower of Pisa, Florence.

What a spread! On a side-walk in Rome. 

 

Pretty street flowers in Rome.

 A blooming balcony overlooking the Piazza Navona, Rome.

Next we have, STREET-LIGHT FETISH

Well, if people have spent time, effort, thought and money in installing them, someone's 

got to appreciate them, isn't it? I love lights that look beautiful even when unlit....

The center of attraction for me at Avila.

Can you spot the street-light next to the guy in blue? 

And the wall-mounted ones on the right-side? Madrid lights!

A lonely light in Avila get its share of limelight!

The stars on the streets of Segovia. The lights, I mean of course! 

 Darn! The Aqueduct, distracted me in Segovia!

 This one caught my fancy on the Madrid city bus tour. 

And look at this gorgeous one from the Royal

palace grounds at Madrid! Had to photo-bomb it! 

This beaut is from the streets of Valencia!

This one's from the streets of Barcelona.

Look at the beautiful lights from the central fountain at Plaza Catalunya, Barcelona.

Technically not a part of my street-light collection, but I had to slip 

these in - from Maestro Gaudi's Casa Batllo, Barcelona.

From the streets of Florence.

Notice the red fleur-de-lis insignia of Florence in this one.

Lights in front of Foro Triano, Rome.

Lights from St Peter's square, Vatican.

Gosh! Looks like this post will be having a sequel after all! I've still got loads of quirky collections that I plan to spring on all my unsuspecting readers!

Cheerio, folks and hang on for the next installment! I hope I'll be getting encouraging comments like, 'Boy! Your collection is way wackier than mine!'
Do share your thoughts about this post and also your travel/photography peeves, if you have some!

-------TO BE CONTINUED------

Read: An off-beat view of Spain & Italy - 2

Copyright © 2016 KALA RAVI