Another attempt at capturing these Romanesque ruins next to Porta Soprana.
They are all that remain of Sant’Andrea church, demolished at the end of the 1800’s when space was needed to construct Via Dante. Most important for me, as that’s where I catch bus 42 out to Boccadasse.
I think it goes without saying but this window dressing amused me ... so much so, that I had to go back and photograph it.
Yes ... I would love to believe that ‘stupid has all the interesting questions’.
Palazzo San Giorgio was built in 1260, by order of the Capitano del Popolo Guglielmo Boccanegra, for the Commune. In 1570 it was extended and this frescoed facade, showing Saint George and his dragon, was added. Later, in the 15th century, the palace became the headquarters of the first European bank, Banco di San Giorgio.
Marco Polo was actually imprisoned inside when it was the Customs House, and it was there, or so it is told, that he dictated his account of his travels to China to a fellow prisoner.
Source: the truly excellent guide book, in English, titled Genoa Guide, by Sagep Turismo. If visiting Genova, I would recommend you buy yourself a copy, as I love it and find myself devouring it like a good novel.
We wandered out to Isola delle Chiatte to see what the sun would do to Genova’s lighthouse, then ended the evening using the tripod in Piazza De Ferrari, photographing the fountain we love so well.
A sunset stroll turned into 2.5 hours of wandering and photography.
A lovely way to end a day, writes this very happy kiwi from Italy.
3 days left in Genoa, and already I'm sad.
Each day, at least one suitcase rolls along the cobblestones here, reminding me that I have to leave too. So now for the last minute photographs we didn’t get yet ... but wait, there is a train that does Cinque Terre. Hmmm, perhaps that rumoured-to-be-heavenly section of coast is for Friday.
Anyway, the scooter mirror ... they are everywhere here in the city, I’ll miss them too.
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, as solid memories, if I manage to call them up.
7am here in Italy, a cup of coffee from my small traveling espresso coffee-pot and a packet of shortbread-like biscuits nearby ...voila, memories of Nana and pre-breakfast coffees back home at her place, in Invercargill, New Zealand, chatting as she sped through her daily Southland Times, reading the news.
Imagine if her and I could have reminisced about 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 Genova waking up, drinking coffee, just like you and I are now.’
Nana, who never left New Zealand in all of her life but 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 ... you would have loved the life of that ancient city.
Then Belgium in 2005’. She would have flown over to make me a balcony garden in Antwerp, and spent evenings out there, ignoring the mosquitoes, drinking a white wine and watching the sun slip below the horizon.
And Genova, I’m almost sure she would never have ever left Genova after arriving. 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 to open 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 than me, even if she was born after me. We used to talk across the single-bed space back in those days when we shared a bedroom and if we had reminisced about my future life, I do believe we might have imagined we were inventing fairy stories ... where Istanbul, Antwerp and Genova were flights of fanciful imaginations ...
She should come here now.
Hhere I am, in the now, in Italy... loving the life I find in Genova.
Did you know, that swallows fly up and down Via Lorenzo in the evenings, before dark, screeching like hysterically happy young girls playing chase at an out-of-control birthday party. They amuse me, those swallows - even as I realise that I can't begin to caputre their antics with my camera.
And did you know that if you take nuts to the park in Nervi, and you throw a few then make yourself comfortable on the grass, the squirrel will be become bolder and bolder ... until you run out of nuts. Then you and he are over as photographer and model.
And did you know that this woman, a few thousand miles from home, from her past lives, and the people she loved first, finds the Ligurian coast an exquisitely beautiful place to remember and miss them?
Church bells ring in through the open kitchen 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.
I wrote of having ’ exciting news’ over here and then became caught up in living the news ... I’m sorry. I didn’t actually explain afterwards.
We had had Kathleen come stay with us for a night the weekend before and that was delightful in itself. Afterwards we had accepted her invitation to come photograph her audition in a place near Viareggio and it was there that we heard this talented soprano sing in real life. It was stunning!
But then last weekend, ‘the news’ was that Peter and little Miss B were wandering over to visit with us. You see, one of the more amazing things about any of these visits is that Madrid-based American soprano, Kathleen, and American, now Berlin-based tenor, Peter ... Gert and I, Antwerp-based, manage to find ourselves in the same country at the same time.
You can read of Peter and his career as a tenor over on his website, although it doesn’t quite capture the lovely guy that Gert and I came to love during the hours we spent together. The same goes for Kathleen ... perhaps I should be writing their websites.
Anyway, we spent a few hours with these extraordinarily talented generous people and we are surely the better for it.
I could have watched these guys work for hours ...
Yesterday, we experienced the pure delight of walking into a tent village of artisans, down at the port, here in Genoa.
I took a series of photographs of the musical instrument-makers at work. Their shop is located at S.S.Matteo 19/18b andI hope to discover a little more about these talented people. It was beautiful to watch them at work but I was so rapt about the range of artisans present, that I forgot to ask questions ...
The thing about Genova is that you find small details like this as you stroll.
I love the whole discovery thing there. If you walk with your eyes wide-open or closed, no matter ... you will find beautiful things every place.
I know some beautiful souls, and in that tradition, we had the pleasure of spending the last 24 hours in the company of these guys.
I spun the ISO setting high for this photograph.
The light was almost over but this beckoned as I wandered home along Via XXV Aprile. Laughing, imagining it an impossible fish to land ... well, I like it.
I took this photograph as the sun left the city, around 8pm ... and up in the top left of the photograph, you can see the sunset light warming the cathedral called San Lorenzo. It was exquisite. I just wish I had a little crane that I could drive around the city and then ride high enough to get the ideal shots I miss on the ground.
Crazily, light over, we made a mad dash through the complicated alleyways between Via San Lorenzo and Via Garibaldi, without a map, racing the last of the evening light. We were only a little lost but missed the best of the ‘last light’ however I played with my Canon EOS 5D mkII again and you can see the results in the alleyway image ... last one going up tonight. I must sleep.
Tomorrow ... well, tomorrow I have more exciting news but more on that then.
Today was one of those days ... everywhere I looked, there was a photograph.
Then we chased the evening light for a couple of hours tonight, exhausting ourselves after a day spent walking but it’s so good to be out in sunshine and warmth after the long winter of ice and snow.
The photograph below was taken in one of the many caruggi, or narrow alleyways, that criss-cross the ancient heart of Genova city.
I love them. You can be constantly lost, although we are getting there ... retracing our steps and exploring a new favourite area.
Life is lived up close and personal, so very unlike my New Zealand life in terms of living space and yet, in another way it reminds me of how known we were back in New Zealand. I experience this Genovese life as a life lived in the midst of a huge extended family. Today we left our keys in the apartment door. The doorbell rang loudly just before dinner and we discovered a lovely elderly couple, with their granddaughter in tow, just letting us know what we had done.
But it’s more than that. It is about hearing the cafe door roll up most mornings, or the neighbour above getting ready for work. Smelling the heavenly scent from food shops surrounding us and the noise of the evening crowd ... being noisy until hours way beyond anything Belgium would allow. I am loving it.
The music has taken over here at the internet cafe. I must go, I find myself typing in time to some lively gypsy-sounding waltz. I will make less sense than usual if I persist.
Ciao for now, from Genova.
I was attempting one of those ‘drive-by’ photographs when I took this but a lovely Italian guy spotted my delight.
He led me off to a nearby shop, wanting to show me another beautiful window scene, and then round the corner where he pointed out the most exquisite church telling us we must go in. The interior, with natural light streaming in, took my breath. No time to edit those photographs yet. We have spent most of the entire day walking. My feet need something for the ache but it was worth it. We travelled in an elevator, up the side of one of the many hills round the city, visited views that left me talking of why we must live here, in Genova.
Another evening, spent chasing the light, and here I am, checking in to upload some of ‘today in Genova’.
When I wander, there is oftentimes that unconscious thing going on ... where I ‘recognise’ something of other places I have loved or lived in.
This bend in the river, near Nervi, reminded me of visiting my Grandma and Grandad in their little cottage in Northeast Valley, back in Dunedin. But it wasn’t about the house pictured, it was about the river and the wall.
On the best visits, Grandad would dig out the old heavy wooden ladder and drop it down to the creek next to the cottage. We 4 kids would climb down and hunt for fresh-water lobsters, occasionally surprising everyone by finding one.
My Grandad wandered the world before me. Grandad George was the man who fought at Gallipoli in Turkey, on the Somme in France and out on Flanders Fields, with the Otago Mounted Rifles. I have wandered in his footsteps when life, unexpectedly, took me to those places too.
You know ... I wish everyone was still alive so we could have all these conversations I want to have with them. Mum would have loved this life of mine and I’m sure she would have visited Italy ... would have decided to stay. She could have had her place next to the sea here in Liguria.
The fountain in Piazza de Ferrari hasn’t been running lately. Perhaps it’s because the wind blows the spray all over everything but whatever the reason, it means I am free to hunt down photographs like this by walking in the empty outer pool.
I took this tonight, in the last of the evening light.
Did I ever mention, I love my Canon EOS 5D Mk II?
Never before have I been behind the scenes of that operatic world but Kathleen invited us to Viareggio to hear and photograph her audition ...
A 2.5 hour train ride along the Ligurian coast, past Carrara ... with some of its fabulous marble stacked next to the railroad line.
Returning, we had the surreal experience of sharing a 6-seat train cabin with 2 Catholic nuns, one of whom was reading aloud from a book in the most exquisite Italian. It was superb ... without a word of exaggeration.
I loved this shot of the giant bubble ...
