The Port of Genova from Spianata Castelletto

Shannon and I were doing an interview up at Spianata Castelletto, the "small castle".  It's a name that refers to the old fort that used to overlook Genova as of the 10th century AD.  Unfortunately it was dismantled in the late 19th century but the view up there is beautiful.  It's a tranquil area, filled with older people taking in the sun and the view, while mothers and fathers bring their babies there.

As we were talking as ship's horn blasted across the city, demanding attention it seemed and so, I have a series of photographs of this massive container ship being guided into port by the 3 tug boats.

Finding Beauty, Genova

It was a good day today, photographically.  A slower day perhaps.  There was cleaning to do here at the apartment, mails to answer, supplies to buy in ... walks to take.  And my marketing course too. My next meeting is on Wednesday.

The course is 6 weeks of learning how to create a targeted marketing campaign and I really can't speak highly enough of my coach, Karen Skidmore.   I am my own worst marketing person.  Photography is fine.  Writing, a pleasure but marketing is one of those nightmares.  I had no clue where to start.

It's a little bit like being back at university.  It seems I'll never outgrow my dodgy studying techniques but they always worked out so perhaps I should relax about that.

Anyway, last photograph tonight ... I promise, but wandering along Via Dante in exceptional light, I noticed the sky and the corner of this building and found them beautiful.

 

The Light ...

Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts

Walker Evans

The light is everything in photography.  I can walk past the same scene one thousand times or more and not see what is there when a particular light shines on it.

Today Via Dante was lit up in a particular way.

Pietro Romanengo Fu Stefano, Confettieri, Genova

On Friday I spent some hours with Anna, from Beautiful Liguria, visiting the laboratory of Genovese confectioner Pietro Romanengo Fu Stefano.

Our tour was followed by an interview, one that opened a door to the confectioner's history, spanning some 234 years. 

The details were fascinating.  The machinery is only replaced if the new equipment leaves the quality of the end product uncompromised and so it was a tour of an older way of doing things.  Attention to detail was everywhere. 

I was offered the opportunity to taste as we wandered.  The delicacy of the products startled me.  I have never tasted anything like the marzipan, the pastilles, nor the chocolates, flavoured as they are, with real flowers and candied fruits.

I will write more but the pastilles below ... delicate and surprising, as they melt in your mouth, releasing the most divine liquid. 'The perfumed pastilles, known also as “ginevrine” (Genevans),  have a very ancient processing where the colour and the aroma given to the sugar are absolutely natural. They can be purchased loose in 500g bags with the taste of rose, banana, Chartreuse liqueur, aniseed, peach, marasca cherry, mint and violet.'