In Genova Today ...

This morning began in Palazzo Ducale with Anna, Emanuela and coffee.  And then, after long and interesting conversations, we went wandering and they introduced me to some of the treasures that hide here in Europe's largest surviving medieval quarter.

Every shop was a story of generations and of families. The passion for what they were doing, their willingness to allow photographs, and to answer questions, was divine. 

It was 1.30pm before I remembered I hadn't actually eaten at all.  Well nothing besides a small spoonful of the most marvelous whipped cream at Crema Buonafede Caffetteria.  I'm being sent there for breakfast tomorrow. I have my instructions regarding my order.

I returned to the apartment, downloaded the photographs, the voice recorder too.  Enjoyed some warm farinata from the shop across the alley and then it was time to go out again.

This was an interview I was absolutely looking forward to.  Roberto Panizza is not only a remarkable businessman but he is a warmhearted soul who welcomed us in and sat down with us to talk for a while, despite his incredibly intense schedule. 

There is the restaurant he runs with his brother, Il Genovese and this website too, should you want to order some truly excellent Italian Food. There is much much more but there's an interview. I'll share when it's done.

And now, here I am, munching on potato chips and drinking a little red wine.  Exhausted but so deeply satisfied with all that I discovered and was introduced to in Genova today.  This city ...

Renzo Piano's Biosphere, Genova

But growing up by the sea, you get an idea of the infinite surface of the world, and you grow up with a number of desires. One is to run away. And I did. The other one is for light. Light is probably the most untouchable, immaterial material of architecture. I have another obsession: fighting gravity. In the sea, everything floats.

Renzo Piano, Architect.

But really, you probably should be encouraged to read more on this rather remarkable man from Genova.

njoying art is a personal matter. It's made up by contemplation, silence, abstraction.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/renzo_piano.html#bGUudFCEuzsJJYUH.99wonder if he imagined that someone might love his Biosphere, there in Porto Antico, simply because she loves the way it reflects Genova 

Harbour Reflections, Genova

It was 15 celsius out there as I wandered just now.  I usually settle down and work into the night and so there's a need for a good walk before starting.

And there are a million photo opportunities here in this ancient city called Genova.  You only need to look, anywhere.  The detail is incredible.  Layers of history on single buildings.  I think I could spend a lifetime here and still find something new everyday.

Anyway, it was reflections this afternoon.

This City ...

I experience every emotion here in Genova. I'm sure of it.

After a terrible night, a story too long to tell, I woke tired and wondered if I could put myself back together for the day ahead but I did.  Of course I did.

I was meeting Stefano, a good friend to me.  He had introduced me to a rather remarkable man some time ago and I had asked if I might return and interview Mr Giovanni Grasso Fravega for my book.

It was agreed and I have just spent the most delightful couple of hours with both men, asking my questions, having them translated, and listening ... wishing, as always, that I had learned Italian by now.

Giovanni Grasso Fravego is a gifted artist, with a career that spans decades, but he is also a man with a rather impressive historical knowledge of Genova.  I look forward to working with his words.  I took photographs too, as he has an exhibition there in the studio he shares with Pier Canosa.

Afterwards, Stefano took me over to the top of the highest building in Genova where I was able to take photographs of the city spread out before me.  It was stunning!  It's another clear blue-sky day here.

Then to lunch at one of the many delightful restaurants here in the city.  I don't have the name but the food was delicious.  I enjoyed a pasta dish, containing a sprinkling of dried and grated unmentionable parts of tuna, preceded by a plate of fried anchovies.

Sometimes I have I no idea how to ease myself back into the world after hours spent like this however there are photographs to edit and a recorded interview to organise. 

To give you a sense of today, here in Genova ... a first glimpse. 

On Allergies And Things

I woke at 6am, knowing I needed to finish my marketing assignment today.  It's bigger and more complex  than I expected but already I see the beauty and sense of what it is teaching me.

This course is all about authentically marketing your business.  It's not about bluff, bluster, or exaggeration.  It's about telling your story and telling it true.  But it's challenging.  It's demanding.  I like it.

If you were to watch the video of me writing this post, you might be tempted to send it viral.  I'm not sure but I think it might be amusing.  I woke at 6am, sneezing.  Nose running like a river in flood.  It's this thing that I do here in Genova sometimes. A small allergy I suspect but no, no anti-histamines thank you very much.

There is a mountain of paper kitchen towels next to me here.  I stop to sneeze 3 or 4  times every few minutes.   Then continue ... writing, finding the photograph.  Concentrating. Sneezing, blowing my nose.  Typing.  Laughing at myself as I became aware of the scene.

It looks like another blue sky day outside my window and Stefano's Righicam promises 12 celsius today. I will write and that's not to be sneezed at ...  because yesterday I was formally introduced to the Tramontana Scura.  The dark north wind.  It was cold and rained periodically.

This morning the sun has already turned the building down by Porta Soprana a pale gold.  My camera may come with me when I go out in search of that first espresso.  The light here, in this city of soft golds through into orange, is often divine but it's not simple to find.  You have to hunt for it. To allow for the fact that the narrow carrugio sometimes only see the midday sun. It is a city of mystery.  A maze of a city.


Rain and Reflections, Genova

It's raining today in Genova but even the rain creates rather exquisite photographic opportunities.

When there's rain here the puddles that form on the tiled sidewalks create beautiful reflections.  It seems like another world down at my feet.

I have been wandering, delighted to find that Caffè degli Specchi has reopened in my absence. I stopped in for an espresso.  Wandering on, I caught up with Francesca and bought pasta while there. 

It's wet and it's little cold here in the city but still beautiful. 

Settling in ...

I feel like a cat or a dog, turning this way and that, making my sleeping place comfortable before I settle down.

It's like that when I arrive here in Genova.  I come without language. I usually arrive alone.  And it's rare that things go smoothly for me.  There's always an incident.  I walk cautiously in these first days, breathing the air and loving the fact I am back, while settling into a new rhythm and way of being.

Since I was small I have had to leave.  I seem to be nervous about getting too comfortable and, in doing so, rendering myself unable to leave.  I like to leave.  As much as I hate it and regret the fact of another journey in the hours before flying.  It's an odd thing inside of me but it's always been like that and so ... I leave sometimes.

There's an exhilaration once I'm out.  And it's the same whether I escape on a bike, in a car, bus or plane.  It must be past life stuff, mustn't it?  I've been escaping since I could first climb the gate. And my parents were actually really lovely.  My childhood was normal.

I'm a chicken though.  Don't mistake me for brave. I am cautious.  I guess I am one of those creatures who feel the fear and do it anyway.  And I love being out here.  Sometimes retrospectively.  Cairo was like that.  I cannot tell you how glad I was to take my seat on that plane back to Belgium.  Cairo was really out there for me. I was staying in a local area, no tourists.  And it was a peaceful, non-threatening chaos.  There was only one mean taxi driver and you get them anywhere.  

My hotel was special, with padlocked chains on the fire escape upstairs, and 2 floors of apartments where the stairwell was sealed off so you couldn't walk down levels two and three.  The elevator and jumping from my 5th floor balcony were the only ways down in a fire.  The mosquitoes bit me and I decided to tough it out, slightly worried about the fact I was a mere kilometre from the Nile.  Did this mean malaria was a possibility.

Later I found it was a possibility and I should have gone to a pharmacy however that was one of those times when I gave myself a good talking to and did nothing.

But mostly, once I'm on my way, I'm the happiest creature in the world.  Although there is some tension.  Obviously.  I travel light financially.  That has caused me some potentially interesting moments but I think I have an angel or someone who watches out for me.  Maybe it's mum.  There's always enough for the 10euro airport bus home. 

I live simply but intensely.  Tonight I had my traditional Napoli pizza for dinner, the one with anchovies ... the pizza  that tells me I have really arrived.  Red wine washes it down.  I've only been here 24 hours but have already talked with some interesting people.   Genova's like that.  They all tell me that they are closed to outsiders and quite conventional meanwhile I have nothing but respect for them.  I like how they are and I appreciate any kindess that comes my way.  And there has been so much kindess.  It means more somehow.  You have to earn it.

So, the first 24 hours is done.  I was out and wandering today.  The rain stopped and we were gifted one of those divine deep-blue sky days that I associate with Genova.  I wandered all over the city and it was 2pm before I questioned how strangely dizzy I was feeling.  I hadn't eaten.  Just an espresso for breakfast and a slice of focaccia that the artists on Via San Lorenzo shared with me.

I forget to eat here. Anyway, I loved the name on this sign.  I was up in an ancient part of the city ... which is saying something when people have lived here for 2,000 years or more.

On Loving Genova ...

I arrived in Genova yesterday, ran my errands, and returned to the apartment just as the heavens opened. And I've been told there is more due tomorrow but today ... today is superb. 

The sky is the deepest blue. It was already 9 celsius when I headed out in search of my first espresso at 10am.  It's so very good to be back. 

I slept 11 hours last night.  6 hours is normal for me.  I need to  go outside again, just to be out in it all.  I wanted to download a series of puddle reflection photographs I just took.  See ... La Superba still is really.

Back in Genova

I woke to the alarm at 5.45am.  We were out the door by 6.40am.  The airport bus, the flight (1 hour 20 minutes), then another airport bus in Milan, and the train through the hills to Genova.  It's been a day but I love traveling.

I was lucky.  There was no rain as I walked along Via XX Settembre from Brignole Station.  I arrived, turned on the gas and heating, changed into more appropriate clothes and then was out again. Hunter-gathering.

It's good to be back in Genova. I love this city, so very much.

My USB modem is loaded to go for a month.  I have red wine, sparkling water, and not too much else at the moment.  I was counting on my favourite pizzeria being open tonight but it's almost 6.30pm and there's nothing happening there yet. 

It's pouring down here but that doesn't matter.  I've always loved rain.  When I lived in Istanbul people would call out compliments to me when it rained.  I sparkle in the rain but it's not surprising, given that I grew up in Dunedin and loved living in Fiordland later.  Rain is that thing that happens in those places.  Excessively at times.

So I have arrived.   Now, to start on the work that I came here to do.

From the Outside Looking In on Genoa

'When the uniqueness of a place sings to us like a melody, then we will know, at last, what it means to be home.'

Paul Gruchow.

Note: I wrote the following post back in 2013, for the Lovin Genova Blog and decided to crosspost it here tonight.  By the way, the Lovin Genova Blog is well worth visiting, if you find yourself curious to know more about that ancient Ligurian city I love so well. 

Genova is a city of layers, so many layers that contain so much history. It is an ancient port city, a city of traders, bankers, artists, and explorers …

But to begin at the beginning, with what struck me that first time I arrived in 2008.

There was this feeling of having arrived in a city protectively nestled, as it is, between the sea and steep hills. As a New Zealander I grew with a deep appreciation for the physical landscape and have a passion for both the sea and the mountains.

Then there were the colours of Genova. Perhaps each person experiences them differently but my over-riding impression was of a city painted in colours that ranged from pale yellow through into a deep orange. Deep green shutters, sometimes blue.

I am a photographer and I admit to being guilty of sometimes saturating the images I capture out there in the city but I defend this as an expression of the intensity of feeling I experience when I wander those city streets.

Paola, my Genovese friend, has gifted me space in her place located in the heart of the old part of the city and I have been able to return, again and again, over the years. I work at her kitchen table, first floor, located in a narrow carruggio – or small alleyway. I work next to an open window most of the time, listening to the life I hear out on the street … and there is so much life. Oftentimes I feel like I have a room in a huge house there in the city.

I hear my neighbours and the people who pass by out on the street, laughing and talking as they go about their day. There is the rattle of espresso cups as breakfast-time comes and goes, then the clink of cutlery at lunch-time. Dogs barking at one another when they meet, another suitcase rolls by, or maybe a class of school children wander past singing. I love the sound of it all.
I live with the ancient city wall almost pressed against the back of my building. The wall that was built to keep Emperor Barbarossa out as he rampaged across Europe in the 12th century.

It has to be known that the people of Genova were business people first and foremost. The saying goes … Januensis ergo mercator – or, Genoese, therefore a merchant. And in their roles as traders and explorers they were in possession of a rather magnificent shipping fleet back in 1155. Barbarossa understood he might require their assistance and left them in peace.

Today the wall still works as a defender … I think of it whenever I lean on my windowsill to get a better phone reception, and my USB modem hangs at the window too.

Each time I return, so many times since 2008, there is a sense of homecoming that surprises me. I come from New Zealand, I have lived in Istanbul, and Antwerp, and yet it is this city in Italy that has won my heart.

I suspect it is because I find everything I require, in just the right measures, in Genova. There is the geography that reminds me of New Zealand, the sense of isolation that comes from being surrounded by hills, and a history so rich, like that found in Istanbul but quieter. The Genovese culture appears to maintain a quiet dignity that I suspect so many visitors have enjoyed over the years.

When I talk to travelers, I discover much to my surprise, that Genova seems to be some kind of secret. It is passed over for the crowded trails in Cinque Terre or for the packed streets of Venice. Meanwhile Genova retains secret pockets of that quiet stately elegance that has won the hearts of people throughout the centuries. Havens of beauty at the end of a funiculor ride or via an elevator that takes you up a hillside to a panoramic view of the city. Tiny shops on ancient streets full of the most beautiful things. Churches and cathedrals with stories woven tightly around them and architecture that spans centuries of development within a single structure.

Those who judge this city externally or too quickly are sentenced to missing the density of experiences that lie hidden in its depths. It’s not an easy city but that, perhaps, is what makes it so very rewarding. It complex and character-filled.

Gustave Flaubert adored it, Petrach wrote of it. Flemish painter, Peter Paul Rubens modeled his house here in Antwerp on palazzi in Genova. And Richard Wagner wrote to Minna Wagner, back in 1853, ‘To offer you on your birthday what I deem the greatest gift, I promise to take you on a trip to Genoa next spring …’

The greatest gift, a trip to Genoa. Richard Wagner and I surely agree.

Source: Richard Wagner quote: from the Genoa Guide, published by Sagep Turismo.


C'era una volta ... or, once upon a time.

Jessie whipped up one of her magnificent Hairy Bikers chicken pies tonight.  It was divine.  Served with mashed potato and with carrots doused in butter, honey, salt and pepper.  Simon took the photo below.

Simon, Paola and Giulia came to dinner tonight. Much talking and quite some laughter were served up with pie and pavlova.

And yes, red wine was involved.

We were talking of all kinds of things, catching up and remembering way back when we first met ... pre-2008.  Veronica, a mutal friend was heading home from an overseas posting and her farewell party was at my place.  'Could Simon come too?' she asked, confessing she hadn't actually met him in real life but telling me he seemed nice over the time they had known each other as blogging friends.

No worries, said the kiwi I am- we're very hospitable.  Paola came too, not sure of what to expect from her husband's unmet online friends ...

Paola and I began with a friendship way back on that evening.  Simon too.  And I've photographed their family over the years that have unfolded since.  Their babies are all at school now. 

Then Paola invited me home to Italy with her one day.  We flew.  I wrote on 17 October, 2008:  Paola and I woke at 4.45am for a 5.45am taxi.  A fast flight to Milan, a bright bright yellow Fiat from Hertz, and here we are, wandering.

I successfully navigated my first big session alone - finding and buying a corkscrew, some internet time, blogging, and walking back to the apartment without getting lost. 

And although I fell for Genova on that very first visit, I had no sense of just how big a part of my life the  ancient Italian city would become. 

On that visit I made a million notes about every place I loved there. I interviewed the owners of all kinds of businesses and took photographs and simply fell for a city, like I had never fallen for a city  before.  The sea, the mountains, the history, the culture  ... its way of being. 

Genova is very particular.

By October 27, still 2008 and that first visit, I was writing the names of the places I loved there.  The colonial spirit still alive and well in me, although quieter and far more polite than my ancestors.  I was simply noting names, not planning a conquest.

I recorded that cascade of those days there in my journal, took photographs and began, way back then, to weave that city into my life.  And tonight, looking back, I realised it all happened because of a farewell party for that lovely American friend called Veronica. 

C'era una volta, a New Zealander hosted a party for an American friend and met a British guy and his Italian wife ...

The Lovin Genova Blog

Sometimes, I write a blog post and it hits a wrong note.  If it stays wrong in my mind, I delete it.  Sorry about that ...

Nice news today is that the new Lovin Genova Blog, created by the Office for the Development and Promotion of Tourism of the City of Genoa, has one of my posts up.  It's titled, From The Outside Looking In.

Davide Chelli has written a beautiful post that takes you inside the Oriental Market, on Via XX Settembre in Genova.

Terry Windling, on Blogging

Here's what blogging is to me: It's a modern form of the old Victorian custom of being "At Home" to visitors on a certain day of the week; it's an Open House during which friends and colleagues know they are welcome to stop by. I'm “At Home” each morning when I put up at post. Here, in the gossamer world of the 'Net, I throw my studio door open to friends and family and strangers alike. And each Comment posted is a calling card left behind by those who have crossed my doorstep.

Terri Windling, extract from, Reflections on Blogging.

I love when this woman writes.  She's wise and her blog posts are another of the places I go when I'm searching for those things I lack here in my world. 

She has a dog, a forest, some hills.  She writes, I'm a writer, artist, and book editor interested in myth, folklore, fairy tales, and the ways they are used in contemporary arts.

I loved today's essay on blogging and can only say yes.

Yesterday I was working with photographs and history of that beautiful fountain in Genova ...

 

Book Work ...

I first arrived in Genova back in 2008.  I have been returning, as often as is possible, since then.  I would live there in a heartbeat.

I have been reading through notes made and books I've bought.  The port of Genova, active since 5 BC.  I found the note that recorded the fact that I almost cried, in front of strangers, that first time I saw the Ligurian Sea from the path at Nervi.  I had written in my journal that Genova seemed more and more, to me, like a place where New Zealand and Istanbul met and become something more beautiful than either ... back on 21 October, 2008

I saw this scene this year I think, and couldn't resist it

Really?

Only a few, who remain children at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again. The world calls them its singers, poets, and story-tellers but they are just people who have not forgotten.

L.M. Montgomery.

Since autumn began I've been attempting to fit my book in around family commitments and being a housewife.  It doesn't really work.  I remember those days back when I left for the office.  I recall the feeling of relief, of being in that safe space defined by clear boundaries marked 'work'.  That place where the threshold was rarely crossed by 'family'.

There was a degree of separation found there.  A door more-or-less closed on the reality that is home life and all  of those things that happen there ... from poo-filled nappies and sleepless nights, to sick cats and people you have powerful emotional ties to.

Work was always a place where I existed at another level.  Where, more often that not, objectivity was a state of being more simply found.  And I was paid for my presence, my hours, my labour.

Working from home, around a family life I rarely decribe here, oh my ... it's a topic I almost never touch.  But there is no degree of seperation.  I use the bathroom here amd I realise that I am also the cleaning lady and dammit, I haven't cleaned the bathroom lately.  I go downstairs for lunch and realise I'm the baker and that a new loaf needs to go in for breakfast tomorrow.  I make a coffee and see the dishes need washed and dried and put away.  I take a shower, need a towel and voila, I realise there are 3 loads of laundry there in the queue.  And what's for dinner tonight ...?

And really, I just want to hunker down in that seperate space called 'the office', and work for my money, and be objective but it's so unrealistic.  I was trained from a very young age that I needed to be responsible ... as the eldest sister, as a good little girl from Mosgiel. 

Gifting myself permission ... no, gifting myself the luxury of writing all day, it's something I am battling with at every level.  This last week has been impossible.  There are moments where I can do my writing work but as it is only the'possibility of income' ... can I even call it work?  Don't so many, as in those who know 'money doesn't grow on trees', view it as a luxury?  This writing lark. 

When you read of money and trees, did you find yourself adopting the deep voice of your father or some other remembered voice of authority?  I think only men have said that to me.  They get so mad with me and my lack of gratitude.  It's only the housework and the family.  You have it so easy. 

But I'm wondering ... 'really?' 

Anyway, I'll work it out and meanwhile, the image below.  My childish self loves the notion that there are the possibility of other worlds in puddles.

A Small Slice of Genova, Italy

For me, the fountain in Piazza De Ferrari represents the true heart of the city.  Then again, I am a foreigner and I may have that wrong but anyway ... I've taken a few hundred photographs of that fountain since first visiting in 2008.  Slicing it up, as I slice up everything. Examining it in different lights, falling in love with the fall of the water one day, then a reflection another day.

On this day the fountain was still and I was able to get close, wanting both the text and reflection of Palazzo Ducale.

Genova ... it's a city I could spend the rest of my life photographing.  I never expected to find one place that would capture my interest in this way but it has.  The more you explore Genova, the closer you go, the more there is. 

Then again, if I was more than 2,000 years in the making then I might be fairly complicated and interesting too.

Woman Enough ...

Writers are often asked, How do you write? With a wordprocessor? an electric typewriter? a quill? longhand? But the essential question is, 'Have you found a space, that empty space, which should surround you when you write?' Into that space, which is like a form of listening, of attention, will come the words, the words your characters will speak, ideas -- inspiration.

If a writer cannot find this space, then poems and stories may be stillborn.

Doris Lessing.

This ... this is so true for me.  I recently deleted my facebook account and experienced a most astounding silence.  It took time to adjust to a life without interesting voices crowding in but I did.  And I loved it.  I wrote.  Eventually though, I realised how little people-contact there is in my everyday world and so I went back to facebook.

The alarm goes every morning at 6.45am here.  I have breakfast ready by 7.30am, when I'm home, and I'm usually here at my desk by 8.30am.  And then I read my way into the place that I work from.

It's a mixture of going through email, a scan of my facebook wall for news of the world, catching up on my blog feed and picking through a selection of new reading there.

There's no physical journey, beyond climbing the stairs to the first floor but there is some kind of journey into that place where I work.

So much can go wrong ...

I think it's why painters have studios, photographers too.  Ateliers.  Mine would be locked some days, with no visible signs of life showing.  I have this 4 hour window of time where I can concentrate intensely.  It's the time when the best of my creativity comes out to play.  I know this but I can't always hold onto it.

I'm studying the 'how' of it because I have had 5 disasterous days in a row, with life crashing into me, again and again.  I think, in the process of opening your self to dig deep and create something that didn't exist before, or to write of something you love so that the passion leaps off the page and convinces people ... you need to go to a place where you can take off your skin and just kind of feel your way with your nerve-endings, with your senses perhaps.

An argument can lay waste to that 'place', to that state of being.  Or realising that this person or that really needs you, or that the house is a mess.  That particular 4 hours out is all that I require but it's so difficult to actually take that much time in the world where I live.

Exit Stage right, and Genova.

I have a favourite poem by a writer I've loved for years. I've posted it before so forgive me if you have already ready it.  Otherwise, maybe this captures something of the struggle ...

Woman Enough

Because my grandmother's hours
were apple cakes baking,
& dust motes gathering,
& linens yellowing
& seams and hems
inevitably unraveling
I almost never keep house
though really I like houses
& wish I had a clean one.

Because my mother's minutes
were sucked into the roar
of the vacuum cleaner,
because she waltzed with the washer-dryer
& tore her hair waiting for repairmen
I send out my laundry,
& live in a dusty house,
though really I like clean houses
as well as anyone.

I am woman enough
to love the kneading of bread
as much as the feel
of typewriter keys
under my fingers
springy, springy.
& the smell of clean laundry
& simmering soup
are almost as dear to me
as the smell of paper and ink.

I wish there were not a choice;
I wish I could be two women.
I wish the days could be longer.
But they are short.
So I write while
the dust piles up.

I sit at my typewriter
remembering my grandmother
& all my mothers,
& the minutes they lost
loving houses better than themselves
& the man I love cleans up the kitchen
grumbling only a little
because he knows
that after all these centuries
it is easier for him
than for me.

Erica Jong.

I had to shower, dress, go find a birthday present for a party this afternoon.  I had to get lunch from the supermarket.  After it all, I came back upstairs just after midday and experimented with layers and frames for my photographs ... trying to 'play' my way back into writing. 

Let's see how the rest of it goes.  The shot ... a city street in Genova.