Ken Ritley

I thought this was a pretty impressive view that shows the silhouette of trees off the Ligurian coast of Italy:

The warm Mediterranean waters smash against the stone breakers that protect the Ligurian coastal village of Monterroso al Mare,

I’ve rarely seen anything quite as impressive or as loud as these crashing waves. The height of the crashing water can easily reach 30 feet or more!

For those that don’t already know it, this is the European country of Italy:

And for those that don’t already know it, on the Northern Coast of Italy is the region of Liguria:

And for those that don’t already know it, scattered along the coast of Liguria are five very colorful villages, known as the Cinque Terre (Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarolo, and Riomaggiore):

Please be a bit careful here. That last image has the words Five Villages but in fact the word Cinque Terre in Italian is translated as five lands.

Regardless if they are villages or lands, nevertheless they are an important tourist destination – to be honest, I’m not quite sure why, other than they are colorful, old, and you can easily visit all villages by taking a train from either Genoa or La Spezia.

In upcoming blog posts I’ll share some snaps that I took when I visited the villages during the off season.

According to the text on a plaque, this Nativity Scene perched high above the Ligurian Cinque Terre coastal village of Manarola is the world’s largest:

This snap shows just a tiny bit of the scene – the lion’s share is out of sight from this view.

Not sure what this flower is called, but I took this snap at the edge of a seaside cliff in the Ligurian coastal village of Varranaza:

A seagull  rests in the sun perched high upon a cliff over the turbulent Mediterranean waters off the coast of the small Cinque Terre village of Vernazza in Italy, and considers his options:

La Spezia is a smallish city in the south of a smallish area called Liguria, which is a smallish region in the northern part of the smallish country of Italy, along the coast.

Here is the business part of the city:

And here is the leisure part of the city:

Although I never captured one of them on camera, the mosquitos were the size of small birds – and, they were the anopheles species known for carrying malaria. However, there is not much malaria in Italy these days, so a major loss of blood is about the only thing to worry about if you get bit by one of these giant flying velociraptors.

The wonderful thing about photography as a hobby is that you always get to learn new things.

I saw this sign for a street named “20th September” (Via XX Septembre) in many, many Italian cities, this one being La Spezia at the furthest tip of the Italian Ligurian coast:

This is to highlight an historical event that took place in the year 1870: Italians completing their conquer of the Italian peninsula.

Interesting aside: I find it quite interesting that many countries name streets after important dates in history – but not the Americans. To my knowledge, there is no “July 4” street – at least not anywhere that I’ve seen.

So the very interesting question is: do other cultures feel inspired — or worse, perhaps obligated — to commemorate events in their history?