They are heralded as one of the great works of mankind, the collective labor of man against nature, turning an inhospitably steep landscape into arable bits of turf on which to scratch out a living. The terraces of the Cinque Terre are one of the major highlights of visiting this […]
Yearly Archives: 2013
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 […]
April 25th has always been a special holiday for Americans in Italy, considering the role played by the American army (though by no means diminishing that of the British army and the Italian partisans) in helping liberate Italy from the Fascists and their Nazi puppet-masters between 1943 and the end […]
You don’t move to the coast if you don’t like the water, and you don’t move to the Mediterranean coast if you don’t like to swim. The water is clean, blue, warm, surrounded by mountains, and its shores are populated by beautiful people. What else do you want? When I moved […]
When you own a piece of land that is part of a precious historical interchange between man and nature, you are inspired to do your best with it, even when it is a losing proposition financially and kicks your ass every time you hump up and down it trying to […]
One of the great annual events in Levanto (actually, twice a year) is the Mangialonga, which translates into “The Long Eat.” Decisively different from the Long March, this is a celebration of local foods and local Medieval hilltop villages. Starting out from downtown Levanto, this day-long event takes you on […]
And after one week of rain, constant and incessant, the sun came shining out late this afternoon. For people who live at a seaside locale, it was like God himself was shining out at us, giving us a brief blessing and reminding us that sooner or later, the rain would […]
The votes have just come in from the Parliamentary elections of 2013, and for those of you paying attention to Italian politics, the results are a mess. The liberal party, the PD, has proven itself incapable of capturing the imagination of new generations of Italian voters who are desperate for […]
Sifting through my old LPs during the Christmas vacation at my parents’ house, I ran across the LIVE 1975-85 box set of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. I’ll admit that back in 1985, at age 12, I listened to the albums some, but not very much. Aside from […]
This is a story that can only happen in Italy, I think. We’ve moving into a new house, and because Levanto is a small town with very close ties between everyone, it turned out that the person whose parking spot I needed to borrow to put in a dumpster for […]