View From Your Table

Punta Chiappa, Italy

James C. continues his birthday excursion in Italy. I’m guessing this above is the sandwich he described in this comment on his earlier VFYT from this trip:

Today I was just walking along the mountainous coast of Liguria, taking trails from village to village above almost impossibly blue water (they are reachable only by trail or boat). I stopped at a house in one village that had a little sign out front. The place was closed, but as I peeked in the window, a women opened the door. Would I want something to eat? she rattled out in Italian. Next thing I knew, she took me into her kitchen to pick out what I wanted. There was an old lady there (the woman’s mamma) and while we chatted together they made me a magnificent sandwich of hot and fresh focaccia, pesto, buffalo mozzarella, succulent tomatoes, and salami. The mamma wrapped it up in tin foil and sent me back on the trail, for a relative pittance.

This evening I just came back to the apartment I rented in Chiavari to pick up my baggage, and the friendly owner suddenly showed up with his mamma, who wanted to meet me. After another friendly chat, I barely made my train. But if I had missed it, nessun problema: it’s really hard to leave this place.

 

Italia, y’all! In the distance above, the town of Camogli. Here’s what it looks like up close:

About the image below, James writes:

Stella Maris…found this at the tip of a dramatic outcropping to implore Our Lady Star of the Sea to watch over the seafarers. God I love being in a catholic country