And there at the end of Corso Italia was Boccadasse ... still.
But they have painted the house I’ve been photographing since that first time I wandered here. Not only that, it’s a restaurant now.
I need to pass by and casually case the joint one day soon, just to see if it’s a place I can afford to eat, maybe one time. It was a house I would have loved to have lived in. A dinner, out there on the terrace, seems like something almost as delightful.
We’ll see ...
A presto.
How hard it is to escape from place. However carefully one goes they hold you - you leave little bits of yourself fluttering on the fences ... little rags and shreds of your very life ...
Katherine Mansfield, New Zealand writer, in a letter to Ida Baker, 1922.
I had this feeling that the clouds, the sea, and the coastline might be interesting if we were to wander out to the look-out on the hill at Boccadasse this morning. And they were.
I love sitting here. It took us longer than planned to reach it, as Gert is all but crippled by back pain and so, we’re moving more slowly than usual.
Meanwhile he has been threatening to write a book full of things that I say. Sometimes he almost falls over laughing. I have to admit, I’m more than happy he doesn’t blog me.
He is also talking of enforcing a 20 euro limit, per journey, on me and the beggars who spot the ‘I give money I don't have to beggars’ halo that shines over my head.
Last night it was the artist ... he was kind of dirty but it wasn’t just the grime and etc. I was lost when he looked directly at me and I noticed his little broken glasses were hanging crookedly from his nose.
Mmmm, and the day before, the African guys. My natural curiousity gets me into trouble while wandering. And Gert’s more than certain they have a far higher income than me at the moment. Let me know if you have need of a little brown plastic turtle or elephant. I have 4 ...
But perhaps I should get these guys to give workshops and help me work on my line out there in the begging world.
There was something that bit me in the soul about Genova. Perhaps it was as simple as living next to the sea again ...
The wind was pummeling everyone there, watching the storm but none of us wanted to leave.
It was stunning.
Later, I heard that this storm was the worst in 8 years, and I saw evidence of it where ever I went ... from broken boats through to the jetsam and flotsam littering the beaches and rocky shores of the coast.
It was truly stunning to be there though ...
I loved this series of images taken during a ferocious storm in Genoa ...
I was out at Boccadasse 4 or 5 times and each time the mood and the sea offered me something different.
Gert flew in yesterday afternoon, via Milano and a train, so I had some time in the morning and caught a bus back out to Boccadasse because ... huge winds were blowing and the sea was storming in the beautiful little fishing village I had first seen on a stunningly sunny and calm autumn day.
Once again I took over 100 photographs however this time I was covered in sea spray and so battered by the winds that I came home exhausted and chilled. The camera fared far better, as I cleaned it continuously with a special damp cloth and kept it under my coat.
I wasn't the only one taking photographs out there and when I'm back in Belgium, you'll probably see more of this superbly wild day on the coast of Genova.
I began today processing people photographs, working at the kitchen table until it was time to set out in search of my morning cappuchino and the bus to Boccadesse … that old fishing village I walked to on Sunday.
Do you know ... it turns out that there is this bus that leaves from just below the apartment and stops near the top of the stairs that lead down to the beach at Boccadasse … so much simpler than walking and being lost in the heat of a Genovese autumn day.
I would write ’but the bus is less interesting’ except for the fact that I met the most interesting woman as I returned via the bus and we talked all the way back to the city. She was lovely. So even the buses are interesting here.
I arrived at the beach in time to watch a rain storm making its way down from the hills. I was up at the lookout for maybe an hour and it was stunning. I really don’t know how I will leave this beautiful city.
So there are photographs from today … as a creature who adores Nature I found it simple to take more than 100 images of light changes playing over the sea and then one or two other subjects I am passionate about. You see, I found the house I would like to live in …
Ciao from Genova in Italy.
So if you leave the beach at Boccadasse and follow the narrow path up the hill, you come to this lookout that gifts you this view.
Then. depending on the mood of Nature that day, anything is possible.
I photographed the rain as it came down from the hills this morning. I experienced a couple of small downpours on my return to the city. I was busy all day. I had wanted to do some work for the NGO, then there was the big walk looking for a money machine I had misplaced in my memory which is kind of fun when it involves fabulous streets like Via Garibaldi. I bought some supplies and chose tonight's fresh ravioli and there was a mad last minute dash for a new book.
And then came the rain ...
I have lived all over the South Island of New Zealand ... Dunedin, Cromwell, Blenheim and Te Anau ... such was that life as a teacher's wife.
Te Anau is located in the mountains, in the south-west of the lower South Island and it is torrential rain country. Lots of millimetres in a very short time.
Istanbul didn't offer me that so often and I was living a 5th and a 2nd floor life. There was no thunderous drumming of rain on the roof. It was different there. 14-million-people-in-a-crowded-city different perhaps.
Belgium doesn't often specialise in the tin-thrumming downpours that I loved back home in New Zealand however ... it seems that Genova does.
So tonight I ran out the door to pick up some work from the internet cafe. It wasn't raining, I forgot my umbrella and then, almost here, the heavens opened.
I'm trapped at the moment, only until I embrace the idea of being soaked in 3 seconds on the way home ... despite being saved by one of the umbrella-selling guys with a mini-5euro umbrella. I think this rain will destroy it in seconds.
I love it though.