Some things change while others stay the same. Siena was pretty much as I remembered it from my previous trip, although wetter this time. It’s still a very attractive city which somehow manages not to let the vast influx of tourists each year drive out its charm.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I drove to Siena directly from San Gimignano, taking a wrong turning, knocking the right side-mirror off the hire car and finally managing to squeeze into a very full car-park next to the football stadium.

I found this weeks PhotoFriday theme, “Movement,” much easier than some of the recent ones. As soon as I saw the title I knew that I had to use this image of a speeding rally car that I took last year in Corsica.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Tools.” I’m entry 150.

I’m starting to learn that the problem with walled cities, as pretty as they are from a distance and on foot, is that parking can be a nightmare.

San Gimignano, in case you had not already guessed, is a walled city. I picked the parking lot the furthest from the route from the main road — quite sneaky I thought — only to find it already full and the path out almost blocked by a badly parked SUV.

Florence is both the capital of Italy’s Tuscany region and was very much as the centre of the Renaissance, which makes it fairly large and packed with treasures. As usual, I tended to stay outside rather than wander around galleries.

I found that the easiest way to get into town — not fancying the drive into the centre of a major Italian city — was to first go to Fiesole, park there and take the number seven bus straight into Florence. The bus goes practically straight past one of the major sites — the Duomo — so this is where I started.

Head to continental Europe too early in the year and you’re likely to get rain. Or go too late and all the locals are on holiday and everywhere is overrun with other tourists. May seemed like a good compromise so we hired a big villa and all flew over to Tuscany.

In the end we got a bit of everything. Some rain, some sun; some areas with more English and German spoken than Italian, some parts where no-one spoke any foreign language; some good food and some really great food; and some fine wines and some fantastic.

This chap is a professional camel handler that led my animal, dancing, singing and laughing all the way through Wadi Rum in Jordan. This weeks PhotoFriday theme being “Professional” I thought this image was appropriate.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “My Little Secret.” I’m entry number 185.

Like most people, most of my photography tends to happen when I travel. I do like to branch out from time to time though, this time into portrait photography. This picture is from my first (and currently only) experience in a studio and is of a model called Lena. She was professional, fun and very keen on motor racing.

This is a cropped version of the original. I usually use the full-size, black and white version which is not suitable for work.

My Little Secret is this, the best coffee shop in Reykjavik, Iceland — it was always half-empty even though they had great drinks and even better cakes.

That’s also this weeks PhotoFriday theme. I found it a tricky subject¹ and I’m not entirely happy with this pictures connection to the topic, but I do think I captured the lighting and the atmosphere of the cafe well.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Electricity.” I’m entry number 225.

This weeks PhotoFriday theme is “Cold.” Here is my entry. Having spent nearly ten months working and living in Norway I had a number of good options here, but I think this image of Tromsø is a good indication of the cold, dark winters they get 400km north of the Arctic Circle. This picture was taken at about 3pm.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Fragile.” I’m entry number 222.

This young tea leaf looks pretty fragile and hence makes a good candidate for this weeks PhotoFriday challenge. I took this picture in Sri Lanka.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Far From Home.” I’m entry number 143.