Discovering Lerici

A small village, a light breeze, and the sea, calm or stormy, which with its waves gives a pleasant cantilena. It looks like the perfect picture for a romantic walk; Well, here in the Gulf of poets you can find the ideal places to spend with an important person and many poets and writers have been inspired and fascinated, so much to put in writing their beauty.

We arrive in the picturesque area of Lerici-san Terenzo. It was one of the stages of the famous Grand Tour, a formative cultural journey undertaken by the young nobles of the seventeenth century in Europe (the first example of tourism!)

The famous Mary Shelley, along with her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, stayed there in about 1820. The two loved to make long and quiet walks and from their dwelling, Villa Magni, they came up to Villa Marigola. This is built on a promontory on the border with the Bay of San Terenzo; Today it can be visited by appointment and hosts weddings, conferences and cultural and artistic events.

The villa is immersed in a forest of Holm oaks and pines; The heart of the whole building is the large terrace, which once welcomed, to the Ligurian use, the "Citrus garden". All around there are small paths: along the way you will arrive at balconies and natural windows on the Gulf of Lerici, on the castle, on the islands, and enjoy spectacular views.

The writer devoted some pages to the description of the bay:

"... The beauty of the place seemed unreal for its own excess: the distance from every trace of civilization, the sea at our feet, his murmurs or his roar always in our ears-all these things induced the mind to meditate on strange thoughts and, lifting from the life of every day, led her to familiarize herself with the unreal. A sort of enchantment surrounded us... "

Very close to the house of the Shelleys we could have met around 1993 also Virginia Woolf, but today we can only read what he wrote admired:

"... Here I am, sitting next to an open window, on a balcony, (...), on a fiery day that I could also describe-but how to describe the hills, the high houses, pink, yellow, white, and a true sea, and not imaginary, of a dark purple color, without rolling waves, other than my sea (nor ' the Waves '), but with ripples of the surface here and there, like those that cross a cornfield , or the back of a horse racing!... "

Continue until the imposing castle of Lerici. We find other romantic paths, especially the one called "Path 3"; It allows us to reach the coves of Maralunga, Maramozza and Fiascherino, excellent for a regenerating bath in brightly coloured waters, in which live rocks, sand and Mediterranean maquis.

"... If you want to know a place to rest in Italy, I tell you lerici, but come and stay here with us at Fiascherino ".

So the English writer David H. Lawrence, wrote to Edward Garnett in 1913. During his stay Lawrence befriended the peasants of the bay together with whom he led a simple life. It is also said that he came to be a wedding witness to Ezekiel Azzarini, one of the peasants.

Lawrence accompanies us to the last stage: Tellaro, which the writer defines with confidence "our country". For nine months, in fact, he stayed with his wife Frida.

"It rises to the cliffs of the sea, a lair of Pirates of two hundred souls. The church is on the water. "

In Tellaro you can lose yourself in solitary carugis or stop to watch the panorama beneath San Giorgio, from the old pink façade, built on the rock and surrounded by the sea.

If you choose to go with the one you love in these small but precious places, you will bring them in for a long time. Just one day for love.

Elisa Ansaldo

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The fantastic area of Lerici

Discovering the picturesque areas of Lerici

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