Best of my travel to Zurich Switzerland and Rome Italy

I am also a painter, and one day, when I was looking for pictures to paint, I made a discovery that would have a huge impact on my life.

 I found Karin's cats.  Karin lives in Switzerland, and she posts beautiful pictures of her cats on Webshots.  I was so excited when she gave me permission to paint her Siamese.

This is my painting of Karin's Kennedy - he's a HUGE character

We began to correspond, and after a year of knowing her, we decided to take a trip to Costa Rica (to be posted later).  I've always wanted to travel to Switzerland to see the Alps, so a couple summers later I invited myself to meet her, the cats, and her amazing country.  We threw in a visit to Italy for good measure, and here are the fruits of our travel labors...

There's Karin doing ONE of the things she does best, taking pictures!

Europeans sure know how to do yumminess.

We took the train from Zurich to Rome through mountains.  The alps were so mysterious, wrapped in mist.

Pinch me, I'm in Rome??!!

Nuns by the Forum in Rome

The smallest country in the world - the Vatican - they even had their own little post office

We went to Florence next, but I'll save that for another post.