Having only moved to Liguria a couple of years ago, I have also only recently become aware of the great Ligurian artists, so many of whom come from Genoa, the most underrated city in all of Italy. These include the violinist Niccolò Paganini, the Nobel Prize winning poet Eugenio Montale […]
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For a series of causes, the name of Massimo Amfiteatrof has been running across my radar a lot recently, so I wanted to let you all know about the excellent classical music festival that is held every summer in Levanto. Named after Massimo, a virtuoso cellist and longtime resident of […]
Despite all of the stereotypes and legends, the truth is that American tourists are usually no better nor no worse than any other group of tourists. What they may lack in terms of linguistic capabilities (which is much in comparison to tourists from any other country), is often made up […]
Popular legend says that Liguria has an unusually high number of nonagenarians running around. While I have never seen any statistics about this fact, casual observation seems to bear it out. Any number of the people I know in Levanto, be they friends or acquaintances, have grandfathers, grandmothers, or great-grandparents […]
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 […]
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 […]