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 […]
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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 […]
There is a relatively new tradition in Levanto, going back 12 consecutive years, of diving into the Mediterranean at noon on New Year’s Day. It’s called “Il Cimento”, a word that I still have not been able to translate. Last year, for our first New Year’s in Levanto, we watched […]
Olives waiting to be carted off to the press From the outset, I must admit that the title of this blog post is perhaps specious … no one really “makes” olive oil by themselves, not unless you are the owner of a very large piece of machinery, or you […]
[portfolio_slideshow autoplay=true navpos=disabled] Nothing about agriculture in the Cinque Terre is easy. This land is not made for easy. After a day in the fields, the thing that most hurts is the soles of your feet from trying desperately to keep yourself steady on the hill all the time. Last […]
My wife is researching the barefoot movement for an article, and all this talk of bare feet brought to mind a comment that I friend of mine here in Levanto made. Talking with one of the older, wiser women from the area, she told him how when she was a […]
Here’s how it went down: I was out walking my father-in-law’s dog, Rocco, who’s spending a month with us taking the airs of the Mediterranean. I’ve gotten into the habit of taking one of my daughters with me when I do this walk, sometime after dinner, but last night we […]
[portfolio_slideshow autoplay=true navpos=disabled] In case anyone was wondering what the olive harvest looks like in Levanto and the Cinque Terre, here it is: lots of rain, lots of wind, lots of shaking of branches, and a whole lot of olives!