Arriving in Chiavari, Italy

Giovannina writing-

Chiavari is a small city on the Italian Riviera that I  have been visiting since my first birthday.  It is situated between Rapallo and Sestri Levante with tons of other great little towns nearby.  Portofino and Cinque Terre are two of the best known spots, but there are many other favorites that our family loves to visit as well.


Woody and I will be staying here for three weeks with my parents in their apartment two blocks from the sea.  I am named after my Nona [Grandmother] Giovannina, who along with her husband, Nono Attilio, bought the apartment in the 1960s for their retirement. When Nona Giovannina passed away, the apartment went to my parents who now live here for at least six months a year, typically January through July.


With the beach just down the street, a lovely open air market nearby  and great restaurants within a couple of blocks, we rarely leave Chiavari.  But since it is still spring and the weather is a little "fresca", Woody and I decided to spend our first day in Italy by going for a short hike in the mountains just outside of town.


The old way of travel here was to walk, and the towns are designed around this mode of transportation.  Path ways through the towns and villages lead to trails to the next town and so on. Recently the local hiking club - Club Alpino Italiano (CAI) has been fixing up many of the trails so it is very easy to go from town to town. There are trails all through the mountains of Italy. If you wanted,  you could hike from Chiavari all the way to Switzerland or France, or even head south along the "Backbone of Italy", the Apennines Mountain Range, all the way to the "end of the boot."  

We left the apartment and with in minutes were in the mountains behind town, enjoying a bit of a work-out after spending the last couple of days on airplanes. Soon we found ourselves on a ridge looking down upon Chiavari whose white stone buildings shone in the sunlight and contrasted with the green hills that rose from the sea behind it. Though the air was cold, the sun was bright, and the ocean glowed a deep blue, highlighting the curved edges of the mountains.

 

As we traveled farther out of town, we encountered  farms that had been trellised for olive orchards and gardens. We passed over bridges hundreds of years old and walked by ancient homes, some abandoned and some still being lived in, mostly by the older population that has not left for the cities.


All the while, the deep blue sea glowed beneath us.