I saw a friend of mine on Fb complaining about the weather forecasts that seem to have kept a significant number of tourists from coming to Levanto and the Cinque Terre this long holiday weekend. His point was that the weather simply wasn’t so bad: not sunny, but warm and not raining at least. (Unfortunately, this morning it’s coming down in buckets, so much for his theory.)
When an area lives and dies by tourism, especially beach tourism, weather is obviously of great concern. No one is worried that come June, July, and August, the town won’t be stuffed full of beach bums, but it’s these long weekends outside the high season that often make up for the long winter hiatus of no one visiting.
I would suggest, though, that if a town is going to live and die by tourism, then it needs to think about ways to get past the bad weather dilemma. Levanto is a paradise for outdoor activities (beach, trails, biking, hiking, climbing, boating, etc.), but it has not found its direction in terms of other things to do. Perhaps we need a local politics of indoor culture and activities?
For the rest, we can just take our meager solace in the old adage, “April showers bring May flowers.”
