Updated Saturday, June 16, 18:19 EST
TAKEAWAY: Discovering the narrow streets and shopping areas of Genova, Italy, can be delightful. Wear comfortable shoes, prepare for serendipity, and don’t miss the gelato laboratory in Via San Luca.
Surprises abound here
Finally, I had found my new beret in Via San Luca 19th century shop
Who could resist these Genovese sweet treats?
Via San Luca: a very narrow shopping street of Genoa, where one finds everything—from hats to gelatos
Genova, or Genoa, is one of the important seaports in Italy. forming the southern corner of the Milan-Turin-Genoa industrial triangle of north-west Italy. I have been coming here to work with Il Secolo XIX for almost 20 years, seeing the newspaper through its different transformations. It will become slightly smaller in format in early February, so I am working diligently with our Garcia Media art director Christian Fortanet, and Il Secolo’s Design Director, Massimo Gentile, as we put finishing touches on a prototype to be printed this weekend.
While the work is interesting and challenging—-the readers will not only see a smaller newspaper, but one without the usual sections to pull out, as it is all integrated into one bigger book——I am always fascinated by a walk in the city, which is full of narrow streets, buildings and palaces and those basilicas in the Romanesque-Renaissance style that is always a good excuse to pull out the iPhone and take a photo, no matter how many times you have looked at them.
“I need a hat, pronto”
It is windy and cold this time of the year in Genoa, although the sun comes in for a visit as early as 9 am most days and stays through 3 pm. But I was missing my hat, which I think I lost in Munich.
I told Christian we needed to hit one of those shopping streets to find me a hat, preferably a Kangol beret, which is what I usually wear.
We embarked into this impromptu shopping escapade, and suddenly found ourselves in the crowded but navigable Via San Luca, in the city’s historic area, where we were told a hat shop named A. Pesce could be found. Indeed, we did get there and found an attentive older woman shopkeeper.
“Sorry, no Kangol berets, here, but we do have others,” she said.
We looked and found one that was exactly my style of beret, but was slightly small.
“No problem,” she said, ” I can make it a little bigger for you.”
She proceeded to put the chosen beret on this wooden base and then cranked up a handle to expand the beret to what turned out to be a perfect fit. Obviously, this lady had seen many heads my size before, as it took her all of 3 minutes to do the job.
Suddenly, the world outside did not matter, as we had penetrated a 19th century establishment complete with tall mirrors on the wall, along with every variety of head gear a gentleman of the period may have desired.
While we waited, Christian and I tried on the top hat (Fred Astaire could wear it well, so could Christian, but not Mario), and then there was the derby black hat which made me look like a doorman at the London Intercontinental Hotel.
Finally I paid for my new black beret, and, oh, it felt great to walk into the cold Genoa night with my head covered.
Time to celebrate
Feeling a little warmer, and knowing that we had already caught glimpse of a small, but inviting, gelateria a few steps away from the A. Pesce hat shop, Christian enticed me into a little “pre dinner” sweet something. Alas, here we are in front of what seems hundreds of tempting small cups with everything from fruits to nuts to mint leaves on top of petit ice cream sundays.
I opted for the chocolate and nuts one, while Christian went for chocolate mint.
This quaint gelateria had stairs leading to a second floor.
“Do you have tables up there,” Christian asked the young attendant dressed in white.
Surprise: no tables up there “that is our gelato laboratory”.
An ice cream laboratory?
“Yes, sir, we make all our ice cream here, by hand, and we do the experiments up there.”
And they have been doing their gelato experiments there for over a century.
Why experiment, I thought? They’ve got it perfect already.
Bild of Germany in Haiti fund raising campaign
Bild’s front page promotes its relief effort for victims of Haiti earthquake
Germany’s popular newspaper, Bild Zeitung, joins a TV station for a gala fund raiser to help the victims of this week’s devastating Haiti earthquake. The program is announced on today’s front page.
The Wall Street Journal Europe
Front page from European edition of The Wall Street Journal
Rarely does one see such a large front page photo on any edition of The Wall Street Journal, which is why I was quite surprised to see this front page of The European edition. It is obvious that since Murdoch purchased the WSJ, photography has played a more vital role, starting on Page One.
From Thailand’s The Nation
Leroy Sylk, art director of Thailand’s The Nation sends us this front page about the Haitian earthquake.
Here is how Leroy explains his newspaper’s page one approach to the tragedy:
It’s not the day the earthquake struck because haiti time is way behind ours, so this page is sort of the second day—a day after the news broke. I chose an action shot as the main pic, but a few others preferred another “more artistic” shot which we finally used as the main, lifting it as far to the top as possible so that most of it goes above the fold…
Making donations to Haiti relief effort
Poster by Philip Brooker
Former Miami Herald artist Philip Brooker, who has created this poster to raise awareness and money to help the victims of the devastating earthquake in Haiti. For donations: www.redcross.org
TheMarioBlog post #456