We’ve been lucky, I said. We’ve been able to live by what we love. And to live painting, as we have, wherever we have, is to live passion and imagination and connection and adoration, all the best of life - to be more alive than the rest.
Extracted from The Passion of Artemisia, by Susan Vreeland.
The flooding is rather serious here ... 3 rivers have broken their banks and already 5 people are confirmed dead, with 3 missing.
We’re up on the hill here in the city and, as far as I know, there are no rivers close by ... We have bought supplies and hope that the rain stops soon but already noted that via XX Settembre is closed down by the covered market. Rain is predicted for a couple more days. There have been some impressive ‘Fiordland rainforest’ downpours througout the day, the difference being that Fiordland New Zealand sits on glacial moraine and drainage is rather efficent. Here the rain all runs down off the hills that surround Genova ... down into the homes and streets that lead to the sea.
It’s 18 celsius, with a warm wind blowing, as I write this at 17.11. It’s disturbingly dark ... daylight saving ended at the weekend, and there is this odd sense of not being sure of what is happening in the city, beyond what I’m reading in the English newspaper found online. It was like this in Istanbul when the city was closed by two huge snowfalls but somehow, this is different. I am realising, once again, that I didn’t prepare for stuff like this.
You will get a sense of it perhaps when viewing one of the early slideshows of the flooding.
I was sitting here, minding my own business at 6.50am, when the sound of the rain registered.
It’s heavy rain out there. I wandered on over to Stefano’s RighiCam and clicked on the 10 day weather forecast. Seems we’re in for some rain here ... and some more rain too, actually.
People are hoping that those living in Cinque Terre will be okay during this series of deluges. You can keep up with news in English from Cinque Terre via Kate Little at Little Paradiso who, in this particular post, lists others who are also writing of the flooding there last week.
Meanwhile, it’s good weather for writing a book, I’m thinking ...
There are the ‘right ways’ of taking photographs and then there’s the ‘fooling around’ ...
This was the latter ... the fooling around. I took this handheld, low-light, high ISO but I wanted to capture the snails.
I can imagine I might fall down the stairs often if I lived here. The ceiling was exquisite. There were snails involved ... painted snails.
Or I might be so distracted, my camera and I, that we would be perpetually late for dinner.
A huge ‘Grazie!’ to Francesca for showing us around this beautiful palazzo here in Genova.
I love looking down as I walk the streets here ...
See what I mean?
Yesterday, we walked a million miles alongside the Ligurian Sea ...
Okay, those who know Corso Italia will know that walking from Boccadasse back to the city of Genova is just over 4kms however ... if you factor in my cold, the fact it was veryvery hot, and the glare of the sun which, while beautiful, was fairly intense without sunglasses, I think you will understand my claim of a million miles.
Actually, the first time I saw this sea, I was too long out of New Zealand and my eyes filled up with tears. It’s my home away from home sea. It’s the sea I love best in these days.
Meanwhile, my body is a bit mad with me. I still have this stinkin’ cold ... probably because I didn’t take the Acetilcisteina EG medicine the pharmacist gave me ... I can already hear my sister explaining why we should take medicines given. My sister, Sandra, is a nurse and knows stuff about the why of drug relief. Meanwhile I’m of the ‘read and flee it’ variety, specially if the contra-indications are grim. Actually this drug seems to be an all-round good guy but who knows ...
Alternatively, I buy the medicine, as if an entirely responsible adult and seem to imagine that is enough. Having it in the house, close by, voila ... !
Osmosis!
Anyway, still feeling kind of miserable and messed up in the mornings ... I’ve just spent the last 30 minutes eating Clementines, blowing my nose and really kind of wishing I had started taking the Acetilcisteina EG all those days ago.
The pharmacist said ‘10 days!’
I said, ‘You mean take it for 10 days?’
He said, ‘Yes, at the same time preferably.’ And I think he said something about before or after food too.
But, once upon a time, back in New Zealand, my lovely doctor did say that colds pass after 2 weeks with medicine, or last a fortnight without medicine.
I’ll let you know ...
The Ligurian Sea is a part of the Mediterranean Sea positioned between the northwestern coast of Italy, the southeastern coast of France, and to the north of the islands of Corsica and Elba.
The western boundaries of the sea are an estimate at best, as mapping accuracy depends on where the sea actually ends, and there are many opinions for same.
The distance from Pisa to Nice is 251 km (156 mi), and from Genoa to Elba is 207 km (129 mi). The max depth is estimated at more than 2,850 m (9,300 ft.).
Called “Mar Ligure” in Italian and “Mer Ligurienne” in French, Genoa and Livorno are its chief ports and the sea is well served by regional ferries.
Sourced, The World Atlas website.
I imagine that the person parking their bike might not have been as excited as I was about this quiet space here in the city of Genova.
I love the colour and textures of that pale golden building. I love that I always find this particular space by chance, while wandering on my way someplace else.
Light is everything here. There is the way the city looks in that deep rich late afternoon autumn light. I photographed a few city buildings last week, simply because the light had changed how I remembered the cityscape along via XX Settembre. I get excited over a blue-sky day and the promise of light in those difficult to reach parts of this tightly-built city. Then a stormy sky promises quite another effect, as the beautiful roofs quietly reveal their full beauty against a backdrop of clouds.
Loving Genova ...
This photo ... I couldn’t resist taking it while on my way to the supermarket this morning. I love this city and its warm colours.
A path is a prior interpretation of the best way to traverse a landscape.
Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking
The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human; the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the circumstances of your life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown …
Theroux
Sourced from Steve McCurry’s photography blog.
Sometimes the photographs, I take here in Genova, are a simple celebration of being back in this place that I love. It’s not always easy living here, without language, without anything resembling huge amounts of money, without family ... but I keep coming back. My camera loves me for it. My photographer’s eyes appreciate it too.
I find something of New Zealand in the sea and the hills. I enjoy the quiet kindness of the Genovese met along the way. These days, I am reading my way into their history. Steven Epstein’s book covers the period between 958-1528. Titled ... Genoa and the Genoese, it captures something of the complicated and rich history of this Italian city that so few people I know seem to know.
Hanna came with me this time and she surely fell for the city, hoping her plane might be cancelled ... just for a few days. There was so much more she wanted to see, and do, and photograph. I watch it happen… everyone who comes here with me has fallen under the spell of this city so far.
It’s good to be back.
We are lonesome animals.
We spend all of our life trying to be less lonesome.
One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say and to feel
‘Yes, that is the way it is, or at least that is the way I feel it.’
You’re not as alone as you thought.
— John Steinbeck
Quote sourced from the blog of the truly gifted photographer, Steve McCurry.
Yesterday, as we worked through our day, Hanna, Francesca and I found time to pop into my favourite church here in Genova ... located in Piazza Maddalena.
I was giving Hanna a little information about photography and explained ... there are all the rules but then you can break them and, sometimes, that’s where the magic happens.
This is one of those shots, for me anyway. I was handholding my camera in an incredibly dark church, kind of falling in love with the light and voila, the light let me have a little of its beautiful self.
But perhaps I should begin with the people I meet here in this city I love so well.
Yesterday Hanna and I spent the day with Francesca. We were putting together a project I have in mind and Francesca had kindly agreed to come along and translate. She just fitted right in as we wandered and worked our way through the day. Mille grazie, Francesca. We had the most excellent time.
And in-between meeting the people we needed to meet, she introduced us to parts of the city we wouldn’t have known about and wouldn’t have dared enter.
Thanks to Francesca, we were able to wander the halls of this grand old house and voila, there was this room, puppet-show in place ... but of course.
There are always these unexpected magical moments here in the ancient city, also called La Superba ... It is also called la Superba - the Superb one - due to its glorious past.
When traveling you should always, but always, know the phone numbers you might need in a medical emergency.
Hanna, my lovely Finnish marketing partner arrived on Wednesday evening and experienced the misfortune of walking straight into my category 5 cold. I was still imagining it might be an allergy at that point and so we went out for pizza.
I couldn’t even finish the pizza and no red wine passed these lips of mine. The misery of the cold was beginning to really press down on me. We went back to the apartment and I crawled into bed only to wake with this terrible feeling of restricted airways ... very much like my old childhood nemisis, croup. My mother used to spend hours with me in our steaming hot bathroom, me ... the screaming toddler who couldn’t breathe. The knowledge being that the steam would open the airways again ... if the child ever stopped crying.
I appeared in the lounge as a startled creature, realising that I didn’t really have a clue about what to do with this reappearance of a seemingly ancient ghost, and not really sure that it was anything to do with croup. And voila, there we were in Italy where I had no idea about after hours doctors or emergency rooms.
I am incredibly fortunate in having a marketing partner who is rapidly becoming a much-treasured friend. We worked through the problems of who we could ask for information after 11pm, and in the end, she went down to the bar near the apartment. The guys in there were so incredibly kind, giving her the address of the nearest hospital emergency room, an after hours house doctor number, and they also offered to call us a taxi. I was just so grateful for their kindness.
She returned with the news. Knowledge is something special, and knowing I did have an emergency place to go if things got worse, we worked out that the situation wasn’t getting any worse, that it seemed more like my larynx having a major incident with flem and swelling, and it might be possible to go back to sleep if I remained propped up for the night. It was a long night but it worked.
Yesterday, some of my favourite Genovese friends emailed in with all the medical information I could possibly need and these last 24 hours have been about living quietly while catching up with a couple of good people.
Stefano came to check on the patient yesterday and took us along the caruggi here, for the most delicious lunch. The restuarant was cosy-warm and the food delightful. Everyone was surprised that I was still saying no to red wine but I have been living on painkillers. It’s not quite time for my ‘wine cure’ but soon, surely it can be soon.
Later, Lorenzo caught up with us, and another piece of the photography workshop tour for 2012 has fitted itself into place. You see, Hanna and I are here to finalise the details for a spring ‘come travel with me’ photography/travel workshop. First the tour, then next week I begin work on the book.
7.30am and here I am, at the kitchen table, ready to work but still struggling with writing as you can read. We have our first appointment at 9.30am and I’ve already decided that will involve a rather good coffee along at Bar Boomerang.
Photos and more lucidly written stories to follow in the days ahead ... she writes, hopefully.
Ciao from Genova.
Those details. Hospitals vary on where you are located but:
Hospital Galliera
Taxi: 0105966
Emergency Number: 112
Guardia Medica (home doctor) 010 354 022 (8pm-8am)
Slowly slowly ... that’s how I’m moving.
I seem have caught myself a cold en route. Feeling sorry for myself is slowing me down, quite a lot.
Photos and stories will come, I just have to get through this phase of yuck. Today, when I sneezed in the supermarket, this crazy guy gestured for me to step back from him. I had my hand over my mouth, my germs were under control. Truly.
Later, when I went to visit Francesca, I warned her of my situation, she laughed and hugged me anyway. She already has the cold, since Saturday.
Sunshine and warmth today.
Ciao for now.
Probably not jet lag ...
The flight to Milan was meant to be about 1 hour and 15 minutes. We ended up arriving 20 minutes early ... a short-cut that boggles my mind. How does a plane arrive 20 minutes early?
The alarm rang in Belgium 4.59am.
Taxi at 5.54am.
Suitcase, the one that Brussels Airport broke last time I flew in there, revealed we hadn’t managed to fix it as I placed it in the hold of the Airport Bus ... 6.05am.
I may have said a bad word.
I arrived at the airport. For a moment, I forgot I was in a country whose service providers often don’t care. I confessed that my suitcase probably wouldn’t stay closed on the plane, due to being damaged last time I’d flown Brussels Airlines. Fortunately, I said, I had managed to replace the suitcase strap they had lost but could he note its fragile status?
No.
Actually, the Brussels Airline check-in bloke pulled that face that Belgian service providers pull when they don’t really want to hear what you are saying because it’s YOUR problem and THEIR company and/or shop refuses to be held accountable.
Fair enough. I’ve been there long enough to know the impossibility of anything close to satisfaction in this kind of thing. I have lost the few battles I’ve attempted. Raising ones voice doesn’t help. These guys survived the Spanish Inquisition. Raising ones voice is NOTHING.
I had an idea and suggested it to the Belgian check-in guy. He warmed to me immediately.
I suggested I get my suitcase plastic-wrapped so it would stay closed.
He led me there, abandoning his post even.
He didn’t mention the 5euro fee for plastic-wrapping.
However, there was the relief of having my suitcase secured. I returned to complete check-in. He had handed my case on to the Belgian check-in woman.
I was early but you really need to be when you tavel from Antwerp to Brussels via the bus. You have to allow for traffic jams when you travel morning or early evening.
I wandered off and bought a bottle of coke,, looking for that instant caffeine hit. I thought the check-out chick insane. She kept asking me for MORE money. I knew we would work it out at some point. She would laugh, I would laugh, she would apologise.
But no, that small bottle of coke really was 3.50euro.
I said ‘I’ll be sure to really really enjoy it then…’ And then we both laughed.
That is a robbery, isn’t it?
It is $4.88us and $6.09 in New Zealand money.
I wish I hadn’t made those conversions now ...
On the plane and things began to improve. I met this lovely Mexican/American woman. We chatted most of the way to Milan and so I noticed even less of the very short flight.
In Milan, the big heavy Belgian-frost-protecting jersey had to come off but ... oh no! I couldn’t put it into my plastic-wrapped suitcase because I still had a long way to travel and dared not interfere with its hold on my belongings - there were two train trips to be made. I tied it onto my suitcase, hoping not to stand out as a peasant there in Milan. Found a nasty sandwich, remembered too late that I knew how to purchase them in that shop because I had been a chicken last time too ... limiting myself to simple Italian when ordering food. Sigh.
I decided perhaps I could make this my rite-of-passage experience. Each time I arrive in Italy I will have one of these disgusting sandwiches to appease the gods of travel and win myself a good visit. I ate almost all of it while waiting for my train to Genova. Breakfast had been quite some hours earlier.
On the train, I had the most incredible good fortune ... (so I’m thinking the sandwich sacrifice may be the ritual of choice on future trips). I sat next to a lovely woman called Germana. We began chatting after she very kindly alerted me to the fact that our number 7 train carriage had just become a number 6, and yes, we all had to move.
My seat was next to her in number 6 carriage and so we began to chat. It turned out that this lovely woman had, like me, had spent some time living in Istanbul. Well, that was that. We fell into conversation, talking of the lovely places she had lived, talking of family, talking of life. It was so excellent! That train trip passed so easily that I didn’t even notice the million tunnels that we have to travel through to reach Genova.
We said goodbye at the station, I found a taxi and voila, here I am, back in this city I love so very deeply.
But that’s not all. I walked into the apartment and Paola and Simon had arranged the loveliest birthday surprise. 3 bottles of truly delicious wine! Really!
So there I was, back in Genova, having met good people along the way, my suitcase had managed to contain itself and not spill open and now ... there was red wine waiting for me!
A huge thank you to Paola and Simon!
Today it’s 9 celsius, it’s pouring down after 3 very dry months here in the city, and here I am, wrapped up warmly and smiling that big smile that I try to control whenever I reach this place.
I hope your worlds are behaving today and I wish you joy.
Ciao for now.
I love the way we can bring the past alive in our present ... recalling the people we loved and lived with, the way that they made us feel. I find everyone is still there, solid memories, whenever I manage to call them up.
7am here in Italy, a cup of coffee from my travel coffee-pot and a packet of Italian shortbread-like biscuits ...voila, I find memories of Nana and pre-breakfast coffees back home at her place, in Invercargill, New Zealand. Us chatting as she sped through her daily Southland Times, reading the news.
If we could have imagined the future ... ‘Hey Nana, in 2010 I’m going to be sitting at Paola’s kitchen table, in a small and ancient city in Italy, window open so I can hear the sounds of the city waking, drinking coffee, just like you and I are now.’
Nana, who never left New Zealand in all of her life. I wonder if she dreamed of it. We never talked of those things.
Or a conversation with Mum ... ‘So I moved to Istanbul in 2003. You would have loved it! The people are so friendly, the summers are warmer than here in Mosgiel, the life ... Come with me?
Then Belgium in 2005 and mum would have flown in. Creating a garden on that first balcony in Antwerp. And then she would have spent evenings out there, ignoring the mosquitoes, drinking white wine and watching as the sun slipped below the horizon.
Genova. I’m sure she would have refused to leave Genova. We would have laughed about me being my mother’s daughter perhaps, with a need for the sea and serious hills, and maybe we could have planned opening some kind of B&B here, satisfying our oddly hospitable souls and the pleasure we find in knowing people.
And my lovely little sister ... the one who has always been older and wiser, even if she was born after me. We used to talk across the space between our single beds, back in those days when we shared a room. If we had imagined my future life we would have been guilty of inventing wild and untrue tales ... ones where Istanbul, Antwerp and Genova were flights of fanciful imaginations. Impossible dreams.
She needs to come here now. I need her in my life.
But Genova ...!
Did you know that swallows fly up and down Via Lorenzo, screeching like hysterically happy young girls playing chase at an out-of-control birthday party. They amuse me, those swallows, even as I realise I can't begin to caputre their antics with my camera.
And do you know how it sounds to wake to the sounds of a cafe directly below your bedroom window? The clatter of cups and saucers and everyday Italian conversations that fly in through my window. The one that is open behind still-closed green shutters, just across the room.
Did you know that this woman, a few thousand miles from home, from past lives, from the people she first loved, finds this Ligiurian city an exquisitely beautiful place to remember and miss them?
Church bells ring in through the open window ... 8am.
Time to begin the new day but Sandra ... come over one day soon.
Ciao from Genova, both feet in the present, as I think what to do with this day.
One of my favourite places, here in the city of Genova, is Bar Boomerang.
Initially it was the name that I noticed. Then the fantastic, never-tasted-better cappuccino drew me back again and again. On this, my second visit to the city, I discovered that their aperitivo is the nicest aperitivo I’ve had so far.
The staff are friendly, clients are important to them and their passion for the work comes through in all that they do. If you are in Genova, I recommend you find your way to this cafe and decide for yourself.
In a small interview with Simona, the patient barista (patient in working with my New Zealand English), I asked a few questions about the cafe.
She explained that the name had orginated from a visit that Marta, the owner, had made to Australia. Marta and her husband enjoyed the trip so much that they named their Genovese cafe Bar Boomerang. I need to explain that what we would call a cafe in New Zealand is a bar here in Italy, although alcohol is served so perhaps it becomes something of a hybrid.
Open five years, the bar is located on via Porta Soprana, 41-43, not far from the ancient Genovese gate known as Porta Soprana. The gate, built in 1155, was originally intended as a defense rampart, with access for commercial traffic arriving via the interior, and acted as a barrier to would-be conquerors like Barbarossa and others. Today it stands permanently open, welcoming foreign creatures like me inside this ancient part of the city.
As a tourist, a sometimes shy tourist without l’taliano, I was a little intimidated about just how to order my coffee. Of course, it’s quite simple. You wander into the cafe, order your coffee, select something to eat if needed and take it yourself. In most bars, you can either pay a little extra and take a seat or stand at the bar and drink without sitting.
You pay as you leave.
At Bar Boomerang, their work is a passion and I’m sure that is what makes everything taste so good. Simona took me through the four steps required to make good coffee. Obviously you begin with good coffee, then you make sure your machines are clean. The third step involves making a good press and the fourth, well that surprised me, it’s about noting the humidity and any changes in the humidity. If it changes, the settings on the coffee machine need to change too.
The coffee is so very good. It’s one of the things I missed for weeks after leaving last time and I expect it will be the same this time.
Most people know Italians take their coffee very seriously. I asked Simona about the ‘rules’ and she explained that a typical Italian customer might have cappuccino or latte in the morning. Milk coffee is only for mornings and laughing she said, not before or after lunch or dinner. This is more of a tourist thing or maybe in winter, on a really cold day. Expresso is for all the time, after lunch or dinner particularly, as its role is to aid in digestion. You could typically follow the expresso with a liquer of some kind like limoncello, grappa or jagermeister.
I feel more relaxed when I wander into the bars here now, still imperfect and prone to crave cappuccino at inappropriate times but less worried.
Bar Boomerang is open from 7am until 9pm, 6 days a week – closed Sunday. They also serve lunches but that’s another post over on the blog.
I ate more pizza than I should have in Genova but eating becomes very much something I can’t be bothered doing when I’m out wandering ... cooking is even less likely to happen and so the pizzeria across the alley became a second home, specially while Pippa was staying.
One night, I popped into the kitchen and took a series of photographs at Pizzeria Da Pino.
I liked this one.
Pizzeria Ravecca da Pino, Via Ravecca, 23r - 16128 Genova.