Imperia Maurizio to Alassio

Kurt Cobain used to scream "I'm on a plane, I can't complain." That's how it feels when the boat starts going fast. When Guizmo stops displacing water and starts skipping on the surface, it leaves behind a completely different kind of wake. Flat and without much froth, it's reminiscent of what a skipping stone leaves behind. It gets quieter on the boat, the dual rudders slice through the water very precisely, and the boat becomes even more responsive than normal.

Guizmo's wake, complicated backstay with three separate attachment points, and the retainer clip for the fishing rod

Cruising on a mini is actually not that easy. One of the biggest challenges is to organize the stuff down in the cabin. In particular, taking things out of the waterproof bags (even though the inside of the boat has been quite dry so far) has been a constant struggle. In Italy, I gave up all pretense and just started going around in undershirts. I felt like Kurtz in the Heart of Darkness, when he went native.

The horror! The horror!

If you ever sent or received flowers in Europe, chances are that the flowers were grown in this region. The hills are full of greenhouses and the extensive rail network enables the flowers to be shipped easily throughout Europe.

Ended up moored at the end of a dock in Port Alassio, a very secluded marina.

Two spinnakers are out on the deck to dry

Imperia Maurizio

The guidebooks overlook it, but I found Imperia to be a gorgeous little town.

There are lots of mansions here, belonging to old merchant families, and they've mostly fallen in disrepair with the declining fortunes of this town. They create a unique look.

Check out the doghouse. It's hard not to fall in love with such a town.

An old summer palace, now being used as a house, complete with a clothesline.
In the US, this place would be on some official registry of historic monuments, have a $14 entry fee, and
would have an attached gift shop.  

Someone did a nice job with the pedestrian zones.

Wish I had a folding bike in the mini.

How many generations of kids have grown up in this house?

Cool doors.

In case anyone had any doubts about what country they were in, here are some helpful clues. How many can you spot?

Answers, from most subtle to less so: (1) Italian-style narrow matrix gridiron work, (2) Italian shutters that open in two directions, (3) swirls on the building, (4) Italian text on the marble plaque, (5) flag, (6) undershirt out to dry just like in a Fellini movie. I thought hard about the relative order between item 5 and 6, and I think I got it right. Italians love to hang their underwear in public.

I initially thought these guys were having a big fight. Then I realized that they were good friends in violent agreement with each other and upset at some external thing that I couldn't quite figure out.

Not sure if this is an Italy-wide practice, but the town posts the obituaries in kiosks near piazzas.

Random shots around town.

I think this shot captures the spirit of this city. Dense, yet mostly empty, with allusions to past grandeur.

Sundial does not know about modern inventions like daylight savings time

I'm a sucker for well-lit churches

Port Imperia Maurizio

There is a huge, absolutely enormous, marina being built in Imperia. I found out first hand that winter storage for boats in the south of France is a huge problem. The Internet is full of skippers looking for marinas with dry storage around this region, and others telling them that there are none.

The only real options are near Marseilles (a place called Navitime and another called Napoleon), in Sete, or in Toulon. Between Toulon and the Italian border, that is, throughout Cote d'Azur and the French Riviera, the ports are almost uniformly too cramped to have dry storage (aka port a sec in French). There is one marina whose name escapes me near Cannes with dry storage, but it has a waiting list a mile long.

So the Italians have built this modern, well-designed port, with a big shipyard, a convention center and many hundreds of berths. When I visited (in summer 2011), the dry storage areas were not ready yet, but they will go into operation next year. It's a very nice facility, situated close to the south of France. And the people who run this place are incredibly nice and helpful.

The mockup

The real thing is just as clean and picture-perfect as the mockup