Italy

We were on our way to Venice through the Dolomite mountains in northern Italy, when we decided to avail ourselves of the rare break in the gloomy weather and head north to a village about a hundred miles outside our planned route. At the end of a box canyon, the village sits quietly - secretly almost, for the mountains give no portent of the scene they conceal. Coming upon it, we were awestruck. The only sounds in this grand place came from church bells ringing in the distance, the stream rushing below us and cow bells clinking in the hills. We quickly set up our camera, racing against the fickle light. Twenty minutes later, the scene - with its divinely granted light and color and shadow - was gone: the sun dropped below the mountains behind us, the clouds shrouded the peaks, and the village receded in the dusky darkness, hidden once again.