It's been known that we love traveling and do travel a lot. The question that we get the most is where our favorite city/country is. Our honest answer has been that there is no one favorite. All those countries and cities that we (personally selected to) travel to bring so much in terms of culture, personal interactions and unique architecture/landscape/sceneries. We love them all and have considered retiring in more than one country. :-)

As our taste has grown increasingly "wild", our trips have taken us further and further away from the so-called "beaten paths". Towards the end of our last trip in Italy, the winding road with hairpin turns one after another lead us onto the little village of Castelluccio di Norcia. Perched at 1,452 meters' altitude, it is the highest settlement in the Apennine Mountains.

The village has roughly 150 residents and given the special geographic condition, the people here have cultivated lentils for generations. Despite that it was still early for lentil flowers (or most any flowers) to carpet the "Great Plain" (Piano Grande) underneath it, I knew I was in for a treat when my eyes met these painterly mountains and the grazing animals that don't even care whether we were there. :-)