

Last week, I had the opportunity to return to Italy as part of my master’s program at IFM. While it would be a gross understatement to describe our week-long sojourn as anything but a whirlwind (hello 5:30 AM call times and midnight bedtimes), it was one of the most fascinating trips I’ve ever taken. Splitting our time equally between Milan and Venice, we had a few once in a lifetime opportunities of gaining exclusive access into the production facilities of Louis Vuitton shoes, as well as ceramic and textile factories. Given the study-related nature of this trip, I didn’t have much free time (or energy) to take my DSLR camera around with me all the time, so my photos from this trip are a mash-up of DSLR photos from Venice and a few of my favourite Instagram snaps from Milan and Venice. While I typically find myself visiting southern Italy more than the north given my family’s roots, thinking about wandering the cobblestone streets around il Duomo and feeling the cold breeze rolling off of Venice’s canals at night is definitely making me eager for a more relaxing trip back to these two cities soon.