Living in Chicago, a fun fact to trot out is that our city, famous for its frigid winters, lies on the same latitude as balmy Rome. I had this bit of trivia in my head as I kept track of a brutal heat wave in Italy this past summer. Temperatures in Milan hovered around 100° F for weeks before breaking in mid-September, about a week or so before our arrival. We found northern Italy mild, humid, and quite verdant.
This part of the world is very lush, and, latitude aside, resembles not Chicago so much as the American Mid-South. Indeed, my friend remarked on one overgrown, hilly road that Italy reminded them of a Kentucky holler. The biggest hazard we would face approaching the places we shot was not security, but rather the overgrown terrain. Which, to be fair, is vastly preferable to a run in with the police, and has added benefit of bathing these buildings in crashing waves of green foliage.
In this post: just the exteriors of various pallazzos arranged by the time of day they were shot.

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This private terrace overlooking an alpine lake was a fitting way to close out our first day in Italy.

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In the next post, we go inside.