{"id":4936,"date":"2015-10-04T21:55:13","date_gmt":"2015-10-04T19:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rickzullo.com\/?p=4936"},"modified":"2022-01-23T15:01:18","modified_gmt":"2022-01-23T14:01:18","slug":"fci-021-visiting-levanto-with-silvia-moggia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/fci-021-visiting-levanto-with-silvia-moggia\/","title":{"rendered":"FCI 021 – Visiting Levanto with Silvia Moggia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"silvia's<\/a>Every year I like to visit at least one area of Italy that I\u2019ve never seen before. Last year it was Verona\/Lake Garda, and this year it is Liguria.<\/p>\n

Actually, I should make a disclaimer. I\u2019ve been to Liguria once before: but it was nine years ago and it was only for a day trip. I whizzed in and out of the Cinque Terre in about seven or eight hours, attempting to set foot on all five \u201cterre\u201d during my whirlwind (For the record, I accomplished only three, missing Corniglia and Vernazza).<\/p>\n

Last month, I was contacted by Silvia Moggia who is working with the Visit Levanto<\/a> consortium to help raise awareness of this wonderful coastal town within the Cinque Terre National Park. However, unlike its five next-door neighbors made famous by Rick Steves (the \u201cother\u201d Rick in Italy travel\u2026I wish he\u2019d stop using my name) this town has maintained its original Riviera feel, relatively uncorrupted by the tourist masses.<\/p>\n

As a travel blogger, I\u2019m beginning to encounter this more frequently; local businesses joining forces to do the job that official tourist boards are not doing\u2026or at least not doing very well.<\/p>\n

Listen to today\u2019s podcast to get the whole scoop.<\/p>\n

Visiting Levanto Italy<\/h2>\n

\"visiting<\/a>OK, so you\u2019ve probably never heard of Levanto, right? (I hadn\u2019t.) Then why should you consider putting this destination on your itinerary for your next visit to Italy?<\/p>\n

Because increasingly, this is becoming the smart tourists\u2019 way of traveling in Italy. Don\u2019t stay in the center of Rome; stay in one outlying neighborhoods or one of the Castelli Romani that\u2019s connected to the city by a local train line. Don\u2019t stay \u201cin\u201d Florence, but in one of the charming Tuscan hill towns 20 minutes beyond the city walls in Chianti. Don\u2019t stay IN the Cinque Terre; stay in Levanto which is much less crowded, cheaper, and only 4 minutes away by train (or two and a half hours by walking\u2014I\u2019ll get to that in a future post).<\/p>\n

In fact, this strategy is even more important in Cinque Terre than in Rome or Florence. Those bigger tourist cities are able to absorb the swell of crowds during peak season and they have the hotels to handle last minute arrivals. Not so in Cinque Terre. For example, 50 years ago Vernazza was a sleepy fishing village of 700 people. Now the daily tourist invasion packs the town with 5,000 sweaty bodies at midday. You literally can\u2019t move around the piazza without touching at least 2-3 other people.<\/p>\n

\"vernazza<\/a>
Vernazza at sunset<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Levanto you have room to breathe (literally). There\u2019s a quaint historical center with real people and real shops\u2014NOT the continuous line of cheap souvenirs that has infected the Cinque Terre. There is also a very nice \u201clungomare<\/em>,\u201d or seaside promenade where you can rent beach equipment, enjoy watersports, eat a seafood lunch, or enjoy a sunset drink. And it\u2019s quiet, relaxing. Exactly what seaside towns are supposed to be.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, you can visit the charming towns of the Cinque Terre in the morning or evening when the crowds have retreated back to Pisa, Genova, or the cruise ships in La Spezia. Then you\u2019ll appreciate what these picturesque villages looked like before Rick (the other one, not me) created the mob scene that they are today.<\/p>\n

Silvia Moggia<\/strong><\/h2>\n

My new friend and fellow travel blogger Silvia Moggia comes from quite an impressive cultural melting pot. Her father is Italian, from Vernazza, and her mother is from Argentina. After a childhood spent between small villages in Liguria\u00a0and extended stays in\u00a0South\u00a0America, she realized her dreams and moved to\u00a0Paris\u00a0to complete her university studies.<\/p>\n

She then worked in such major opera houses as the Paris Opera and the Palau de las Artes in\u00a0Valencia, Spain. Then in 2011 she came back to the\u00a0Cinque Terre\u00a0to help her loved ones after\u00a0the flood\u00a0<\/a>that had swept away\u00a0and devastated their lives.<\/p>\n

She now\u00a0manages\u00a0the small family hotel<\/a>\u00a0while still traveling whenever she can. She\u2019s also very active with local tourism marketing and destination management, and she writes about travel\u00a0and Liguria in her personal blog, Silvia\u2019s Trips<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So if you do decide to visit Levanto, Cinque Terre, or anywhere in Liguria, get in touch with her\u2014she\u2019d love to help you appreciate her hometown area.<\/p>\n

Click the link to check out other episodes and see my list of the <\/span>best podcasts about Italy<\/b><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nhttp:\/\/feeds.soundcloud.com\/stream\/226645584-rick-zullo-1-fci-021-visiting-levanto-with-silvia-moggia.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a> (Duration: 25:10 — 23.0MB) | Embed<\/a><\/p>

<\/p>

Subscribe: Email<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every year I like to visit at least one area of Italy that I\u2019ve never seen before. Last year it was Verona\/Lake Garda, and this year it is Liguria. Actually, I should make a disclaimer. I\u2019ve been to Liguria once before: but it was nine years ago and it was only for a day trip. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[211,344,66],"tags":[397,396,394,395],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4936"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11814,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4936\/revisions\/11814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}