Liguria

Liguria has been a topic for centuries and nobody has ever been able to convey all that eyes and heart may draw from that exciting mix of sea, sky and land.

A thriving land sometimes but also a land burnt by a sun always shining and by a saltish taste wich stirs up the air and gets into people's minds as much as it makes the Ligurians a people of explorers, sailors, traders, bankers and craftsmen capable of conquering the world setting off from a very small part of Italy. Great words have been written about this region and if an unfair reputation of being too frugal is still today pinned on the Ligurians, those who have described this land cannot be accused of sparing adjectives.

Even though this land has been throughly described, the wise travellers for whom other people's accounts are not enough and still want to keep on exploring and looking for other "pearls" other than Portofino can fill their eyes with new colours, evocative narrow streets (named 'caruggi'), museum, art, untouched nature, ancient and new feasts, traditions that cannot die. And they can also fill their ears with unknow music, unforgettable concerts never played before, and can also taste the typical food of the Riviera, the variety of its seafood, its 'pesto', its 'focacce', the hand-made pasta, vegetable and fish-soups, the natural and varied tastes of its inland. Here, the lack of road communications in early times led each village to have separate agricultural and gastronomic cultures and its own special recipes for even the more traditional dishes such Ripieni, Pansoti, sweet and savoury cakes. And then the typical Ligurian terracing supported by dry stone walls, named 'fasce', sloping down from the hill to the sea, wich keep producing the renowned DOC red and white, dry and sweet wines such as Vermentino, Soave, Pigato, Chiaretto und desweiteren Vernaccia, Sciacchetrà, Cinqueterre, Rossese as well as the tasteful olive oil.