We spend a lot of time promoting boat tours of the Cinque Terre, but the truth is that we personally don’t do any of them. (Would you really trust the guy on the left to drive your boat?) We are neither mariners, nor navigators, nor nostromo. But we have a […]
The Sea
25 posts
For those who fly across oceans to visit Italy and make the Cinque Terre one of their many stops on a grueling two-week European vacation, hitting the beach is not usually on top of their list of priorities. For those who have more time to spend in Italy, coming to […]
The US has everything one could imagine in terms of natural beauty: mountains, rivers, deserts, forests, beaches, oceans, bays, cliffs, plains, lakes, islands, geysers, swamps, and moonscapes that rival the best to be found worldwide. That’s one of the reasons that so many Americans don’t travel outside the US. […]
This weekend we had a group of 23 high school students from Parma here in Levanto for an outdoor field trip in the Cinque Terre. We spend a lot of time promoting our field trips specifically because they get the kids outside and moving, which is good for everyone. This […]
Five months of flat, glassy, waveless, imperturbable sea. The World Longboard Surfing Championships in Levanto came and went without a ripple on the water, leaving competitors listless and bored. The Mediterranean looked like a pond. Now, as it always has been and always will be, it is reborn. And it’s […]
The beauty of the sea oftentimes lies above the water-line. The salty air that sticks to your skin and clears your lungs. The colors that the sun takes on as it finishes its daily journey toward the horizon. And on the clear days when the wind has whisked away all […]
Much consternation has been expressed by our friends and family members about our black cat Bagheera in her new home in Levanto. Whereas in Parma she was a pampered indoor-outdoor cat, coming and going as she pleased, at all hours of the day or night, often returning for nothing more […]
If you look closely at the photo above, you’ll see the remains of an old construction in the foreground, probably a small stone hut used for storing tools and for getting out of the sun while eating your lunch on hot days. There’s not much left of it now, and […]
If you are receptive enough to all of the stimuli around you, and experienced or wise enough to filter out the white noise and focus on things of substance, you will frequently find yourself in contact with people of extraordinary personality or character. This morning, for example, I was visiting […]
Last week Tuesday, 8 days ago, just hours before the deluge that brought down an unbelievable amount of water and mud and suffering to the Cinque Terre, I went to take a look at the sea after dropping my daughter off at nursery school. It was a warm morning, the […]