Torre di Barbaresco

We have been exploring the area by bus and with our bicycles. However, walking is the primary mode of transportation in this little village. Our apartment is up the hill toward the mountains and really just a short walk to the center of town. We can look at the sea from both our front and back balconies. It is a beautiful sight wherever we look. Pleasure boats and smaller fishing boats ply the waters off the village. The weather has been glorious, sunny and dry ..wonderful for bicycling or going to the beach. This is a vacation town and very close to San Remo, Monaco and the French Riviera. This week school begins for all the children. There is a lovely
Iittle Primary school that I am going to attempt to visit next week. We will see if my pathetic Italian gets me through the door. This region of Liguria was at one time a prime target for pirates. Here, I have heard them called Barabaresco and Sarcerans. In each little town you can still see a tower(torre) along the water. Long ago these towers were manned by watchmen to warn the inhabitants about approaching pirates. Women and children were captured and sold as slaves to other areas in the Meditteranean. The men of course were killed. The watchman would sound the alarm and the inhabitants would race back into the interior where the mountains are steep and the valleys are narrow. Many of the little villages high in the mountains are extremely fortified against such attacks. Today these little mountain villages are losing their young people to the modern world.


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