At first arriving to Novara I was told by the school administration of Liceo Bellini to go on vacation, so I did! Maddy, Maria, and I went to the Liguria for 5 days. What an adventure! We were in a little town called Cogoleto in a country house on the mountainside. A dream right? Yes, it was.
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The first full day we had here we went into the historic city of Genova. I was super happy because I got to cross off a UNESCO World Heritage Site my first week in Italy! Genoa’s historic center, specifically La Strada Nuova and the 42 Palazzi dei Rolli, are the UNESCO site. The palaces were beautiful and gloriously fancy. We also saw the “house” of Christopher Columbus. I put that in quotes because we passed a few of these said “houses” of Christopher Columbus. According to UNESCO this is why Genoa is deserving of the world heritage distinction:
The Strade Nuove and the system of the Palazzi dei Rolli in Genoa’s historic centre date from the late 16th and early 17th centuries when the Republic of Genoa was at the height of its financial and seafaring power. The site represents the first example in Europe of an urban development project parceled out by a public authority within a unitary framework and associated to a particular system of ‘public lodging’ in private residences, as decreed by the Senate in 1576. The site includes an ensemble of Renaissance and Baroque palaces along the so-called ‘new streets’ (Strade Nuove). The Palazzi dei Rolli offer an extraordinary variety of different solutions, achieving universal value in adapting to the particular characteristics of the site and to the requirements of a specific social and economic organization. They also offer an original example of a public network of private residences designated to host state visits.
The next few days were filled with a fantastic mix of beach and mountains – we spent the mornings at the beach lounging and walking around and then the afternoons hiking the mountains with the dogs. I didn’t go into the water because (to a Floridian wimp) it was freezing. Liguria such a fantastic and unique landscape! I would really love to explore this part of Italy more. On one of our hikes we passed by a mountain monastery and old stone houses romantically covered in vines, ate wild figs and blackberries! I felt like I was in a movie, like the Sound of Music without the Nazis.
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JMO
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