Pizzeria Da Pino, Genova

Pizzeria Da Pino creates the best pizza I have tasted anyplace in the world.

This is not a paid advertisement, as I always pay for their pizza ... and gladly.

I’m a bit of a Napoli pizza girl but mostly because I didn’t really discover anchovies until I arrived here in Genova back in 2008.  And now I can’t get enough of them.

And basil, ohmygoodness!  How didn’t I know about Basil??

So tonight, the night of Last Hours in Genova Rituals, is all about good pizza, a favourite wine, about cleaning and packing, about wishing I wasn’t leaving again but, at the same time, needing to go home.

It’s like that ...

Buon Sapore di Barbara Savoia & C.

This morning, Lorenzo kindly allowed me to tag along with him as he made his daily walk through the city, buying produce for his vegan cafe, cibi e libri in Via Ravecca.

And while wandering, he introduced me to Barbara and Rossana, at their fruit and vegetable shop at Via di Pre 96-98r.  They are the last of the Genovese selling fruit and vegetables on Via Pre, a street where a truly international population operates today.  I took a few photographs and will add them some time soon but for the moment, a glimpse of this lovely little shop here in Genova.

One of the last remaining medieval towers in Genova ...

This morning I had the most remarkable, almost overwhelming, time.

The other day, Stefano had introduced me to a lovely man, an artist who is something of an expert on the truly ancient part of Genova.  ‘Truly ancient part’ translates as more than 2000 years old.

Today we 3 met under the gate known as Porta Soprana, one of those ancient gates built back in 1155 as part of the Republic’s defense against Barbarossa, and we set out on our walking tour. 

The tower photographed at the end of this post is, of course, medieval. 

The New Zealander in me, the child who remains, found that fact stunning.  And by the end of the tour my mind was mush. I felt extremely fragile but understood, eventually, that it was coming face-to-face with explanations of ancient history.  Legend has it, that the man who built this tower was responsible for ... inventing a kind of mobile ladder to scale the walls of Jerusalem during the Crusades.

Really!

I don’t write of the days where I find myself on my knees, completely lost in the world.  I feel things quite deeply.  I presume it’s an artiste thing (let’s put a positive spin on this) but there are times when I am crippled by a feeling of immense fragility as I wander the world.  It happened in Cairo.  It happened in Istanbul however it doesn’t seem to stop me wandering… 

It happened today.  I felt so small in this ancient world and I had no idea of how to save myself. But I usually do. Or someone else does without knowing what they have done.

Sometimes I wonder if I just can’t somehow become a stay-at-home-kind-a-woman-with-my-labrador-dog... but then I need to wander again.  But I love labradors.  I love belonging someplace. However I seem to need to climb that gate I used to climb as a very small child.

And so, to walk through these streets today, with two men I respect immensely and being offered a glimpse of the enormity of Genova’s history down through time ... I had to rest this afternoon because my mind was shattered.  I felt like I might just implode.  I felt so very small ... and lost.

And yet we all know ... I’ll do it again and again and again because that seems to be what I do.

If living alone in Istanbul for two years didn’t cure me of the loneliness and fragility that comes with this strange life that I live, then nothing will I think.

Today I learned so much about a very small part of this ancient city I love and it was good.  Mille grazie to those who patiently led me through these ancient streets telling me stories and translating.  It was a golden day.

The Angel, Chiesa di San Siro, Genova

I went out this morning, chasing the light, ignoring the biting wind.  It was a good tour involving many city hills.

Meanwhile, I’ve just returned from a lovely lunch at Cambi Cafe with Stefano.  The atmosphere was lovely, the food rather delicious, and the conversation enjoyable.

Mille grazie, Stefano.

Walking in Genova

Genova sits between the hills and the sea.  The city begins climbing the slopes almost immediately after you leave the port and whenever I arrive here, from the flatness of Antwerp, I suffer.

But now, I am fine, wandering at will on the steepest streets.  I’m getting strong again. 

Below, a street walked yesterday ...

Buon Natale

Yesterday was the day I said goodbye to the artists on via S. Lorenzo.  They are only there at the weekends and I’ll be back in Belgium next weekend.

I was so surprised to hear them wish me Buon Natale as we said our goodbyes but of course, it’s almost Christmas, even if my New Zealand-orientated self doesn’t understand the possibility of Christmas in the dead of winter.

I was so very pleased to see Franco Fondacaro this time.  He is the guy in the photograph below, captured as he talked of his art with a client.  Not long after I left Genova last time, he was beaten up and robbed, early one morning while out walking his dog. 

Franco fought back.
Franco is 83, and completely adorable. Everyone was horrified that he had been attacked by the two guys.  He spent quite some time in hospital and is slowly recovering from a serious neck injury but stll, he is full of life and laughter.  It was good to see him.

Meanwhile, Shannon finished Amedeo’s new website and so, last night, Karla, Amedeo and I had a working/farewell dinner where I showed them how to operate the new site.  I think it’s a good idea that Amedeo’s latest work is always out there, especially now winter is coming.  Now I just need to work on the About text which is currently a direct translation of his Italian bio via google translate. 

We also spent time working out whether to move Karla’s website over to Blogger or some other space.  I think we will.  And some new business cards have been designed for both of them.  We had so much fun.  I’ll miss them.

I love it here.  I come alive in a way that I don’t think I am alive any place else.  It’s been difficult this time but the cough is almost gone.  I’m strong again, and walking all over the ancient heart of the city.  I was sitting on the stairs of San Lorenzo Cathedral earlier, close to my favourite lion sculpture, just watching the world go by while eating a slice of onion focaccia ... happy. 

Happy to be here, in this moment, in this place.
Buon Natale ...

Luciano Viotti, Painter

Luciano Viotti is another of the artists I enjoy down on Via San Lorenzo. 

He has a big soul and you see it in his work.  I loved this one yesterday, of the trams over in Milano. 

He explains that he has been painting for more than thirty years.  He began with realism, then pointillism but today finds him expressing himself in a personalized Impressionism.  I love it.  Karla insists that you can find the 1950s in his work but it’s something you would have to see for yourself.

You can find more of his work over on his website.

Amedeo Baldovino's Artwork

Today I was gifted a second beautiful painting ... painted just for me. 
Look closely, you’ll see.

I love this city. 
I love the people here, and already I’m thinking about the fact that it will be my suitcase rolling along the caruggi here in a few days.  I will take some exquisite memories when I leave ... as always.

Anyway, about the photograph of the painting below.  It was painted by one of my favourite artists in the world, Amedeo Baldovino.  You can read of my first meetings with him over here.

Tonight I had the pleasure of having dinner with both Amedeo and Karla. I do adore them.

Mille grazie, Amedeo!  I love the painting.  I love that in those Genovese cityscapes you paint, there is a space for this New Zealand photographer who is passionate about books.

Karla Verdugo, Artist

I met Karla Verdugo back in July, on my previous visit to Genova. 

Karla’s one of a group of artists who sell their artworks down on Via San Lorenzo, on Saturdays and Sundays.  I adore them.  They’re the loveliest people.  If passing, you really should stop and chat and consider their artworks.

Today Karla gifted me an early Christmas gift.  It was one of two paintings I wanted to buy from her and it’s going to make me smile everytime I look at it.  Not only because I love it and it’s a gift from a lovely friend but because I consumed a whole jar of honey on this visit. It was my drug of choice when it came to fighting this cold of mine. 

It shall be hung someplace close to my desk.
Grazie, Karla.

Lovin Genova

I think this photograph says it all today ...  it’s a glorious day here in Genova.  Blue skies, not to cold, lots of lovely people.

But more on the people who operate behind the window in the photograph.  Lovin Genova provides people with all the information they could need when wandering in Genova. They have two offices, one down near the pirate ship parked in the harbour, close to the aquarium and another up on Via Garibaldi.  Their English publications are superb and I can’t recommend them highly enough.

Ciao from La Superba

Yasmina Khadra ... aka Mohamed Moulessehoul, Writer

What to keep of all these reels of film, what to throw away? If we could only take 1 memory on our journey, what would we choose? At the expense of what or whom? And most importantly, how to choose among all these shadows, all these spectres, all these titans? Who are we, when all is said and done? Are we the people we once were or the people we wish we had been? Are we the pain we caused others or the pain we suffered at the hands of others? The encounters we missed or those fortuitous meetings that changed the course of our destiny? Our time behind the scenes that saved us form our vanity or the moment in the limelight that warmed us? We are all of these things, we are the whole life that we have lived, its highs and lows, its fortunes and its hardships, we are the sum of the ghosts that haunt us… we are a host of characters in one, so convincing in every role we played that it is impossible for us to tell who we really were, who we have become, who we will be.
― Yasmina Khadra, What the Day Owes the Night

Tonight, I had the pleasure of attending a talk given by Yasmina Khadra ... aka Mohamed Moulessehoul.

Mohamed was an officer in the Algerian army, a man who was forced to adopt a woman’s pseudonym to avoid military censorship as the writer he was. Despite the publication of many successful novels in Algeria, Moulessehoul only revealed his true identity in 2001 after leaving the army and going into exile and seclusion in France.

It was fascinating, despite being in French and Italian.  Sometimes that just leaves a person free to watch and examine body language and location, and the people around them.

It was held in Genova’s exquisite Palazzo Ducale ...

It was an enjoyable interlude.

And yes ... I regret not taking my camera but I was running late. 

A little news from Genova ...

I must stop with talk of my cold ... forgive me. I just haven’t had one like that in a very long time. 

And it was probably complicated by that sense of being lost that I have when something goes a bit wrong and I’m wandering without the language of the countries I visit or live in.

In Istanbul, I remember a friend dragging me into a pharmacy one snowy day because she was worried about my hacking cough.  I knew it was pharyngitis, I get it as part two of a cold sometimes.  I left the shop at speed when the pharmacist pulled out the paraphernalia to give me an injection of antibiotics.  Since those days, I’ve developed odd allergies to surprising things.  One of the popular ingredients in medication that dries up phlegm and etc, isn’t a friend of mine and so I try to avoid medicine unless utterly necessary.

However, this time I think I may have had the cold longer than was necessary and yes ... talked of it more than I should have.  In good news, I’ve slept through the night these last two nights.  Tis bliss.

Yesterday was a lovely day and it’s my quiet belief that lovely days should be celebrated with the purchase of a book from La Feltrinelli, here in Genova.  I love that bookshop, intensely.  I looked at everything, wandering for more than an hour, oftentimes wishing I would just sit down and study Italian so I could buy some of those books.  But their English section has a good selection too.

And I found treasure ... Roberto Saviano’s book, Beauty and the Inferno.  It turns out he has published a series of essays in a book titled, Beauty and the Inferno.  In it he reflects on his new life as a fugitive writer and the experiences of others in the same position. “He makes common cause with others, like Salman Rushdie or Anna Politkovskaya, who have also been persecuted for their writing; in the latter’s case, fatally. The book is at its best when Saviano describes the strange half-world that he now inhabits. Of a meeting with Rushdie in Stockholm, he writes: “The difference between Rushdie and me is that he was condemned by a regime that does not tolerate expressions that run counter to its ideology. In my country, where censorship does not exist, oversight and indifference take its place.”“  Extracted from Duncan Campbell’s review in the Guardian.

My day ended at a pizzeria with two lovely women.  It was the perfect way to end a good day.  Grazie.

I’m off an adventure this afternoon.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

A New Week, Genova

Friday night’s jazz and cooking evening had to be cancelled, as the cold sucked all of my energy out of me.  Then Saturday’s dinner at Arenzano was postponed till Sunday, due to ... my cough, lack of energy and etc.

Saturday night was a nightmare.  I coughed until 6am, then slept until 10.30am.  Francesca, Beppe, Romi and Marco were so kind putting up with the tired creature who arrived for lunch.  Then again, the conversations were so interesting that I think they revitalised me. 

Last night, I took cough mixture, a natural kind, and can you believe it ... I slept.  Almost all night.  It was a stunning departure from recent nights.

I bounced out of of bed at 8.30am today, dressed and caught the bus out to Boccadasse, deciding that these new energy levels needed tested out alongside the sea, with a stroll on Corso Italia. 
The photograph below was a part of the view ... it was lovely out there, just lovely.