Check out this video. 

http://player.vimeo.com/video/70776419

This is also Italy in a nutshell.   xxoo me

My daughter's hair is blue and we went to the sea yesterday.   The only connection between those two statements is that she had her hair dyed while we were at the sea and actually, now that I think about it, the hair blue matches the color of the water at the beach perfectly.  If you drive directly south from Torino for an hour you get to Savona, a large ugly port city on the Ligurian coast.  From there you head west along the Via Aurelia, (the 2000 year old road built by the ancient Romans to help them with their world conquering), and after 15 minutes you come to Noli.  Noli is where GP's parents used to take him for their summer holidays when he was a child and it's one of the first places he took me when I came to Italy.  It's a charming little town with nice beaches, turquoise water, streets meandering up into the hills and a great castle hovering over it all.   It is also one of the last villages on this touristic coast with a healthy fishing industry.  Fishermen leave at sundown with large gas lights attached to the sterns of their wooden boats.  The lights attract the fish which they scoop up in big nets.   In the mornings the fishermen pull their boats up onto the beach and sell their catch at the open air market built right on the waterfront promenade.  When we arrived yesterday at 9:30 the last of the fish was being wrapped up and carted off.  Noli has a long history and back in the day it was part of Genova's Maritime Republic.  There are all sorts of wonderful old buildings, towers and squares and the best gelato shop ever.   I love it.

fishing boats on beach

the castle ramparts climb up the hills behind

cool building

beachfront promenade

We spent the entire day sleeping in the sun and swimming.  The water was incredibly clear and the temperature perfect.   I didn't want to leave.  I had to get in one last day of summer as the autumn rains should start soon.  They've been predicting rain for the last week but obviously it hasn't happened yet.


We got home in time to change and head out again.  We had dinner with another couple at a new restaurant/cocktail bar owned by an old friend.  I wanted it to be really good for their sake but it was rather disappointing.  Thankfully they did have a good selection of wines so all was not lost.  Didn't get home till after 1 o'clock and that's way past my bedtime.  Early night tonight!

I don't mind the blue hair at all by the way.  Xxoo me

This is Italy in a nutshell.   A colleague recently had her credit card information stolen.  Her Italian bank contacted her and said they had put a block on the card and gave her a list of suspicious expenditures which she confirmed were not hers.  Had this been in the US it would have pretty much ended there.  But no!  She then had to go to the local police station to report the crime.  She lives in the next town over from us, Troffarello.  Troffarello, though a town of 30,000+ people, only keeps its police and town offices open in the morning.  (cause no crimes are committed after lunch apparently) As this was impossible for her, she went to the police in our town after school.  There she took a number, waited for an hour or more whilst 3 employees drank coffee and discussed tomato sauce.  She finally got in to see an officer who took her report, writing by hand all the illegal charges made on her card.  He then stamped it a few times and told her to take it to the bank.  Mind you this is the same info the bank had sent her, which is how she had it in the first place.  But now it had pretty stamps!  Then the bank said she had to cut her card in half, take a picture of it, and send the photo to them.  This selfsame card they had just cancelled so it couldn’t have been used anyhow.  (Trust no one is the Italian motto.  Not even yourselves!)  Back and forth, back and forth.  Italy is redundancy taken to the highest power.   xxoo me