An Inebriated Evening at the Villa

I wanted to write this post for a couple days now and am finally getting around to it.  I have been busy the last couple days moving all my junk from one house to another, dealing with the local nationals for electricity, internet, lease agreement, etc… it can get quite exhausting.  This past weekend, besides spending a spectacular evening in Milan and another 2 days hiking between the 5 awesome towns of Cinque Terre, my girlfriend and I had the privledge of attending an amazing wedding in the city of Senago.  The reception was held at the Villa San Carlo Borromeo, an absolutely marvelous 5 star hotel situated on a man-made hill overlooking Senago all the way to Milan (you can read about some of its history here, since I would just plagiarize it anyways ).  When I checked in, this is the room they gave me…

Now, we all think they saw a tall American walk in (The groom is a good American friend of mine, one who I played… err, watched play basketball from the Naval Academy bench during my college days) and assumed I was the groom.  Either way, they changed his room for the wedding night to one even better than this one.

The night before the wedding though (after “some” bottles of wine with the groom and another good buddy Joe), I stumbled around the hotel with my tripod and began to shoot away.  It was around 3 am so everyone was asleep – but it would have been a funny site to see me tripping over myself  setting up my tripod in this amazing Palace of a hotel.  Anyways, here are some of the shots from that night exploring the dark hallways around the Villa.  I was pretty tipsy, but made myself go out and shoot, so please excuse any “lack” of quality present…

This is the base of the “grand” staircase.  I have no idea what the staircase was called, but grand seems fitting.  This fountain wasn’t working when I was at the hotel, but it was still a pretty sweet piece of art.

It was raining outside, so after taking 6 bracket sets or so, this was the only set where you couldn’t see my hand in the frame as I was trying to shield the lens (yup, left my lens hood at home…)  This is the beautiful courtyard of the Villa.

Back inside, here is a view of the “grand” staircase.  My wide angle is still getting fixed so all of these are with my standard D90 package purchase stock 18-105mm VR lens.  Man I am missing that 10-24mm.  Moment of silence……… ok here’s the photo.

Halfway up the stairs was this little sitting room.  During the day it looked old and boring and I completely wrote it off, but at night it seemed to take on this unique, magical gleam.

Further up the stairs, some twists and turns, a secret entry or three (ok it was only two) and we were almost at the roof.  I didn’t realize what this lamp to the right looked like until i started processing this one… Talk about spooky!  I attribute my lack of detail at the time to the wine (or maybe it was the champagne).  Anyways, here is the spooky lamp fairy tale picture.

Carefully getting myself, my tripod, and my camera on to the wet, slippery roof (forgetting my common sense somewhere between bottle number 3 and 4 of the night), I was treated to this spectacular view.  You can see Milan to the left and a glowing blue cross to the right (once again, completely missed this until processing).  It was still raining at this time mind you.  Its a miracle this picture came out the way it did and I am still here to actually post it.  

And the final picture of the night, the hallway where my room was.  The memory is completely fuzzy at this point, but I am pretty happy with the outcome on this one.  

Seeing as this was my first real “shooting under the influence” experience, I don’t think it came out all that bad.  Help me out and share this one if you enjoyed reading it!  Thanks for all the continued support and guidance!!