I have been running away to Genoa since first being introduced to it by my lovely friend, Paola. She opened the door to her home-city, and then left it open for me to return.
I find something of home there, my New Zealand home. Maybe it's simply the sea and the hills. And then there are the unexpected things that happen, like this ...
Daylight saving began here in Belgium today, and we another blue-sky warm day but my mind was off and wandering in Genova ...
Just after 3am, I woke to a noise that sounded remarkably like a big building collapsing. The boom of it echoed through the caruggi, the narrow alleyways here.
I lay there, not really wanting to think about what it might have been. Soon after, it happened again. Thunder? I got up to look and discovered yes, thunder, lightning and heavy rain. I went back to bed hoping that the flash floods of last week had cleared streams and pathways so that this torrential rain might cause less problems ... then realised it may still be a case of a lot of water cascading down from the hills above the city, overflowing streams and streets ... and I hoped not.
I lay there, listening, hoping that this was more about the sound and the fury of a storm and less about many mm’s of rain in a short period of time.
5am, I woke up to the crashing of thunder and wondered if it was the same storm or a new one.
6.50am, I gave in and got up. The storm continues and is incredibly noisy. Perhaps it is trapped between the high hills of Genova and the sea. It’s not going away.
I remembered Cinque Terre were concerned about this next lot of heavy rain, I don’t know if Genova needs to be too but it doesn’t seem like the best kind of weather for a city so recently hit by serious flooding.
Genova’s Righicam gives you a peek in at the weather and the weather forecast it links to tells me that there is a 100% chance of rain until 11am, easing to a 90% chance of light rain from about 5pm.
So, today one might be sure in the knowledge that it’s going to rain. Reassuringly ... surprisingly, I can hear people in the alley below. Hardy souls out with umbrellas on their way to work I guess. It’s still dark, except for those moments when lightning fills the sky.
Kate, an American who has been living in Cinque Terre for years, posted an email she initially began writing for friends and family ... after realising they seemed to have no idea of how bad things are here in Italy. So many Americans have wandered through, and fallen in love, with Cinque Terre that she and other American bloggers living in the area were disappointed by the lack of coverage the devastation in their area is getting. They’re encouraging donations to Red Cross
I have to admit to being worried if Cinque Terre is receiving the rain we’ve been having here in Genova these last few hours, and yet I don’t want to be alarmist. This isn’t my country and it’s not my landscape. Unlike the corners of New Zealand I lived in, I don’t know the area well enough to understand whether it can cope with the rainfall we’re having right now. I guess it’s just a matter of waiting and seeing, hoping that those in authority here in the city get the warnings out this time and no more lives are lost because the 10-20% of Genova that is down low or situated in the flat places may be taking a hammering now.
I took this photograph down at the ruin of the ancient temple yesterday.
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.
I have loved the world in reflections since those days when I was a small child traveling to my Nana and Grandad’s house in Invercargill.
The swampy creek that ran alongside State Highway 1 over near Berwick was almost always a place of perfect reflections. No one realised probably but I was contemplating that world so perfectly reflected, wondering if it might be another world, a parallel world perhaps, a magical world.
These days, I have discovered I can go some way to photographing those worlds reflected in puddles. And I love it. The rain stopped for a while today, the sun came out and voila, there we all were, out on the beautiful streets of this city.
So ... here’s a little of the beauty I find in Genova, in reflection.
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 ...
I love looking down as I walk the streets here ...
See what I mean?
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.
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.
I arrived in Genova on Monday 24 October and, on the following day, we had rain here in the city.
It was the first in 3 months and I didn’t think too much about it, other than trying to deal with the problem of never knowing how to dress against the weather here. There is this tricky humidity to contend with, one that sees me either over-dressed or under-dressed for the weather ... never correctly-dressed. Wednesday a heavy cold hit. I’m not sure that my inappropriate outdoor clothing wasn’t responsible.
Wednesday and news began filtering in about a massive dumping of rain over in Cinque Terre.
I won’t even begin to attempt to explain the story to those who haven’t heard of Cinque Terre because Alex explains all over on his blog, Italy Chronicles. But for those who asked about how it was here in Genova, knowing how close we are to Cinque Terre, there are two videos and an explanation over on Alex’s blog.
There were no problems here in Genova because the powerful downpour was fairly localised and truly terrible, as you will see.
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.