La Spezia travel guide for 2018

Angela

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See:
https://www.apathtolunch.com/2014/06/la-spezia-travel-guide-top-ten.html

This is the Della Robbia they're talking about. The French took it during the Napoleonic Wars, and it took about 100 years to get it back. It's ten feet high and eight feed wide:
57587.jpg


The section on food is particularly good.
http://www.cittadellaspezia.com/foto/2013/12/01/57587.jpg

They don't have a picture of verdure ripiene or torta di verdura, two of our signature dishes. We stuff peppers, zucchini, onions, mushrooms, whatever is available:
Blog_Verdure_Ripiene-Ligure.jpg



Torta di verdura is sort of like Greek spanakopita:
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Any vegetable in season is mixed with beaten eggs and tons of grated cheeses.

Goodness knows I love real focaccia and farinata, but when I go back, my first dish of sgabei , our hollow, salty, fried bread is enough to reduce me to tears!

Sgabei.jpg


Wherever you are in Europe, if they have an ethnographic museum, go...you'll see how people lived in that area not so long ago.

La Spezia

594uk-sp1.JPG

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Museo-Civico-Etnografico-Giovanni-Podenzana-55670.jpg


La Spezia, of course, is also the gateway to the Cinque Terre:
vernazza-la-spezia-liguria-1024x7681.jpg
 
It kind of reminds me of the canary islands a little bit :) I would love to go and improve on my Italian also
 
It kind of reminds me of the canary islands a little bit :) I would love to go and improve on my Italian also

It has a Mediterranean micro-climate despite its latitude because of the mountains at its back and the sea in front. The Greeks and Romans brought the grapes vines and chestnut trees and olive trees which are now so important to us, but the palm trees are recent, brought by the English, a lot of them, and totally "foreign", but they thrive and are so lovely. In fact, many of our beautiful gardens were created by the English, bless them. :)

http://riviera-press.fr/insider/content/english-garden-traditions-liguria

Giardini_Winter_Mare.jpg


villa-pergola-02.jpg


villa-della-pergola-alassio-012-85505-960x600.jpg


In the interests of fairness I should say that La Spezia is "dead" at night. Much better to head over to Sarzana.

If it wasn't so beastly hot and humid there during the summer I'd pick that as my retirement spot. As it is, probably up in the hills in the outskirts of Genova.

Sarzana_2014_10_31_13_00_51.jpg
 
What a beautiful place, I think I may need to see it one day :)

If you like to hike and take pictures, the Cinque Terre are ideal, and still beautiful even in the off-season when it's grey.

Honestly, Americans! Try the farinata or the focaccia, for goodness' sakes; you can get pizza with mozzarella so many other places!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaeR2L0_EyI

Also lovely is the natural preserve of the promontorio di Montemarcello. You absolutely don't need to go with a group. For Americans, it looks and smells a lot like Carmel, in California.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eE53n1uJtE

Photographer's guide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6JTDPQwUCM


For those who want more challenging hiking there are the Alpi Apuane right near by:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35RZZgHavYw
 
It’s in one of my Results:
5 Terre

“...... The azure waters of the Mediterranean Sea hug the southern European coastline in areas like the picturesque Cinque Terre of northwestern Italy - rocky promontories engaged in a never-ending battle for maritime supremacy. ......”
 
It’s in one of my Results:
5 Terre

“...... The azure waters of the Mediterranean Sea hug the southern European coastline in areas like the picturesque Cinque Terre of northwestern Italy - rocky promontories engaged in a never-ending battle for maritime supremacy. ......”

Well, the Romans deported a lot of my ancestors to the Sannio supposedly, and they could have spread out a bit. Not far from the Molise to Apulia, especially northern Apulia.

They were the last hold outs in northern Italy and they paid for it.
ligurian-guerrero.jpg


dei_apuani.jpg


The villages and the lifestyle seem to have been a lot like that of the Gauls:
index-71.jpg


You can see why they say that: it's a constant struggle

PDF-SEA092-Manarola-Sunrise-Cinque-Terre-Italy.jpg


the-wavevernazzacinque-terre-italy-jennie-breeze.jpg



When it's not the sea alone it's the sea in combination with torrential rains causing massive flooding and mudslides, like in California.

maxresdefault.jpg


All of Liguria and even the neighboring Lunigiana are prone to flooding. Genova:
genoa_italy.jpg


Fabrizio D'Andre has a wonderful song about a memorable one:
 
If that’s the case Jovalis and I are your Long Lost Cousins. lol [emoji2]
 
It’s in one of my Results:
5 Terre

“...... The azure waters of the Mediterranean Sea hug the southern European coastline in areas like the picturesque Cinque Terre of northwestern Italy - rocky promontories engaged in a never-ending battle for maritime supremacy. ......”
Theres a dna test that has a La Spezia category?
 
Not Specifically La Spezia. The General Area It’s part of the North Mediterranean Ancestry. [emoji4]
 
That makes the most amount of sense, thanks.

Yeah a La Spezia category would be like having an English from London category, too narrow
 
That makes the most amount of sense, thanks.

Yeah a La Spezia category would be like having an English from London category, too narrow

AncestryDNA has also some of my Genetic Relatives in Liguria, but doesn’t say if they migrated North, or if they at some point went South.
La Spezia is Down and further to the East toward where Liguria begin.
(I posted this pic before too. ps I’m having trouble writing in English today, [emoji854] )
9d881b5bc46e1e082d8d2a501b4dcad1.jpg
 
AncestryDNA has also some of my Genetic Relatives in Liguria, but doesn’t say if they migrated North, or if they at some point went South.
La Spezia is Down and further to the East toward where Liguria begin.
(I posted this pic before too. ps I’m having trouble writing in English today, [emoji854] )
9d881b5bc46e1e082d8d2a501b4dcad1.jpg

Lots and lots of southerners moved north to work in Liguria, especially Genova and La Spezia. That's probably it.

When geneticists tried to find traces of the Ligures in the south by looking at yDna they found nothing. Now, either that means the Romans greatly exaggerated the numbers of the Ligures whom they transported, or they were looking for the wrong yDna clades.
 
Lots and lots of southerners moved north to work in Liguria, especially Genova and La Spezia. That's probably it.

When geneticists tried to find traces of the Ligures in the south by looking at yDna they found nothing. Now, either that means the Romans greatly exaggerated the numbers of the Ligures whom they transported, or they were looking for the wrong yDna clades.
I don’t know if the population tested are recent immigrants from the South, or 100% Ligurians.
I do agree with you, about the Migration, 100%.
In my case, I think that If the People who took the DNA Test are recent newcomers, and or part of the recent South to North 100 Years migrations, I would have genetic relatives plastered all over the map of the North, but I don’t. Still You’re Probably right and are Recent Migrants from the South.
 
Or maybe there are very few South Italians in liguria who tested and those are the ones you match
 
Or maybe there are very few South Italians in liguria who tested and those are the ones you match
That’s another Astute Observation. [emoji3]
 
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Practically nobody tests in Italy. I can't even get my relatives to test. When I suggest it the answer is usually: we come from right here___; insert name of ancestral village or villages. I would never have tested myself if I hadn't spent most of my life studying Italian history and didn't happen to come upon Dienekes' blog. Some of my more leftist relatives think it's all tainted with racism and want nothing to do with it for that reason.

A lot of the samples from northern Italy and Tuscany are from academic studies on population genetics or disease studies looking at the results of inbreeding. Others, however, are just from studies looking at drug efficacy and things like that so they don't care about your actual ancestral origins. That's how I got all these matches from Argentina: they were elderly Italian immigrants from Liguria and northwestern Toscana.

Most of the samples held by the commercial testing companies are from Italian Americans, and the vast majority of them are from Southern Italy and Sicily. I think they got a lot of what they call "Central Italy" samples because of the Abruzzesi in America, but meanwhile the Abruzzesi are genetically and culturally Southern Italians despite the fact that they sit geographically in Central Italy.
 
Last Summer, I mentioned for a moment the Ancestry Test to Relatives.
Suspicious Reaction:
“I believe Great Uncle, not those DNA bs”
“Why, don’t you know who you are? Waste of money.”
“Do you suspect that your .... is not .....”
“Are you Legally Suing somebody for Property.”
.... and I literally changed subject in about 30 second.
Omaggio to Fabrizio De André from The Night of the Taranta
 
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A new and very beautiful HD video of LaSpezia...even the audio is great...it's almost like being there...I can almost fool myself into thinking I can smell it. Play it full screen and volume up. It's great.

Does anyone know anything about this camera, how expensive it is, how hard to use? I really want to capture people and places with this kind of realism before it's too late.


People seem to really like the Disney Cruise which docks there now.

https://disneycruise.disney.go.com/...vitavecchia--rome-/june-14-2019-disney-magic/
 

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