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Published: September 28th 2016
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My Place in Baiardo
Notice the crazy steps Because of Ferragosto (vacations in Italy around the 15
thof August), there was no camp for me. ACLE has free shared accommodations in the village of Baiardo, which was on the other side of Italy from me (the far northwest). I took a 12 hour train ride to San Remo then an hour bus ride back and forth up the mountain. Then I hauled my heavy backpack up Baiardo’s hill to the farthest possible room and got unpacked.
Baiardo had suffered an earthquake on Ash Wednesday of 1887. Unfortunately, 600 people were worshiping in the church when the roof collapsed on them, and one third of them died. This was a quarter of the town’s population. Instead of rebuilding the town, which was mostly destroyed, the survivors constructed a ‘new town’ a bit farther down the hill.
The church has never been rebuilt (it retains walls and a shrine); however, about 30 years ago, some locals started to reconstruct the old town. ACLE owns many of the re-done houses, and this is where ACLE-associated guests stay. The accommodations tend to be narrow, multi-story sections of longer multi-family buildings. The steps inside are some of the steepest
and most uneven I’ve ever encountered, but the craftsmanship of the reconstruction is astounding. To me, Baiardo is a magical town made of stone, tunnels, arches . . . You can spend a few hours exploring the winding streets, which all tend to end with beautiful views of mountains.
Baiardo was one of my favorite places in all of Italy, and a lot of it was because our terrace had beautiful views of mountains. We ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the terrace if we were around. What a peaceful place.
It was my home base for the week, along with 20-ish other ACLE tutors. One day, I went to nearby San Remo for a ‘beach day’. It was my first time in the Mediterranean, and the water was beautiful. Italian beaches, though, tend to be concrete poured on top of rocks, or at best, pebble beaches. San Remo is a pretty city, and I could have spent more time exploring it.
Another day, we went to Hanbury Gardens and the French seaside town of Menton. Hanbury Gardens had a lot of interesting cacti, but not much else was happening in
the peak of the summer there. The best part of that trip was walking from near Menton along the coast to a beach next to Monaco. The walk is called Promenade Le Corbusier, and I highly recommend it. The water is different colors of blue, and as you walk along the peninsula, you get different views of Menton and Monaco. It took us a little over an hour, but you could take your time, bring a picnic, and sit on the rocks next to the sea if you wanted.
Another day, a new tutor friend suggested we try to get to the nearby town, Apricale. A friend of hers highly suggested it, but unfortunately there was no good public transportation option. It was only 12 km away, so we discussed walking it. Luckily, a tutor I’d worked with for 4 weeks was also at Baiardo, and he was a hitchhiking expert. Normally, I wouldn’t have considered it, but I felt okay because it would be three of us together, and it was close. Plus, aren’t mountain people known for being friendly?
We began by walking, but luckily a grandmother with her granddaughter picked us
up quickly. We spoke a mixture of English, Italian, Spanish, and French together, with each person adding some language to the mix. She could only take us a couple of kilometers, but before dropping us off, she pulled over to ask a family getting into two different cars.
Initially they said they couldn’t, but when they realized it was only three of us (not four, with the granddaughter), the dad and teenage son gave us a lift all the way to Apricale. The dad had actually worked for the founder of ACLE, and the son had been taught English by another ACLE administrator (small world!). They invited us to come to their farm the next day for lunch, and to ‘do work’. We were thrilled, and thought it would be a cool cultural experience. We were on such a high when we got to Apricale. We’d also just had our coffees, so that probably helped.
For me, the town of Apricale was cuter and more ‘put-together’ than Baiardo. It has more of a tourist infrastructure. For example, there are paintings done on plaster all through the town, more plants, a gift shop, etc. Baiardo
has the advantage with its views, though. You can get great workouts walking up steep streets in both towns!
We had a longer stretch of walking on the way back to Baiardo. We took a snack break. After a while, a middle-aged woman with her dog picked us up. She was on vacation in the area, but could only take us 2 kilometers. When you contemplate having 12 kilometers to walk up windy mountain roads, any number of kilometers you can get a ride is useful.
After she dropped us off, we walked a while more. We were beginning to think we’d walk the rest of the way back, when a cool younger woman picked us up. She lived in Baiardo and worked in Apricale! She asked us if we minded if we stopped on the way. She needed to water her vegetable garden, which is on the side of the mountain below Baiardo. We were happy to explore.
We got back and had ‘make-your-own-pizza’ dinner in a restaurant in Baiardo. You add the ingredients to the pizza, then they put it in the wood oven. It only takes a few
minutes to cook. So cool! At dinner, we bragged to the other tutors about our exciting day. Most of them had just laid around all day . . .
The next day, we waited for the guy to pick us up to go to their farm. We had no idea what to expect. When we finally decided to move to a different area to wait for him, we realized we’d had a miscommunication about the meeting point. But no problem! He had one of his daughters walk us down to the farm. “It’s close,” she assured us. No, about a 30 minute walk!
We spent a good amount of time watching their 4 donkeys, a short amount of time moving them (led by our brave male tutor friend), a long time walking through brambles to an old church, a short time collecting different fruit like figs and prunes, a long time sitting around, a short time taking a disintegrating tarp off of an old camper, a short time eating sandwiches of cheese and green beans, and a short time stacking rocks on top of a roof to hold it down.
After
St. Nicholas Church, Baiardo, Liguria
Partially destroyed by earthquake in 1887 enough time had passed in the anticlimactic day, we suggested going back. He said we could stop at the other part of the farm first. We were kind of unclear about it, because he mostly spoke French, and only one of us had low-intermediate French. Anyway, we walked back up the road about 20 minutes to another strip of farm, where he showed us pigs, another donkey, and some chickens. Finally, we piled into his very small car—him, his two daughters, his German shepherd, three tutors, and some farm equipment. Not the most pleasant journey I’ve had in my life. It was an experience, one I’ll remember for a long time.
Our last excursion was to Genoa, where I’d already been. I’ve already written about my earlier visit, and I don’t have much to add to that, except that we did find Columbus’s house. It was just unremarkable, so I’d walked past it before.
Most of the tutors left Baiardo on Saturday morning to go to their next camps. Three of us stayed an extra night because the next day we were flying to Bari in the far south for our next camp! Oh,
yeah!
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