Viva l'Italia: Parte Due

On this, my second pilgrimage to the motherland since I retired from Eugene Water & Electric Board, several aspects stood out -- just as they did during my first visit -- time and again: the cuisine, the beaches, the art and architecture and, of course, the people.

Check it out for yourself. Nearly everyone’s list of the top 10 reasons to visit Italy includes one constant -- the food. Jory and I were not immune to the world’s most fabulous foods, wines and pastries; we dined at the best restaurants in Liguria while we were there.

With a slight tip of the beret to France, the hard truth is that Italy is the food capital of Europe. No matter whether you can only afford pizza or a simple bowl of pasta, the meals were always prepared with skill. The Italians make it look easy, but it’s not.

To balance the right ingredients in exactly the right proportions, Italian cooks with epicurean skills -- like my grandmother -- utilize an intuitive formula of flavors that you won’t find in any cookbook, but you’ll certainly know it when you taste it.

When it was time to eat, my Gramma would say -- succinctly and with some authority -- “mangia que” (eat this). We (my brothers and sisters and I) would comply immediately, and with great enthusiasm.

In Genoa, it’s practically impossible to leave town without tasting “pesto Genovese” -- the famous sauce made from fresh basil, garlic, Parmesan cheese and pine nuts. Due to the city’s location on the coast, many pesto dishes included a variety of types of seafood.

We ate out virtually every night, and since the restaurants weren’t open until 8 p.m., we would occasionally enjoy the free apertivos at the Café Barbarossa (below) until they did.

Breakfast, served as part of the cost of our room at the Hotel Cristoforo Colombo, was certainly a good excuse to get out of bed.

For one thing, it was all the cappuccino I could drink and some of the best-tasting pastries in the world, as well as hard-boiled eggs, several types of cheese, prosciutto, salami, cereal, quiche and juices.

My favorite was the "crostata,” an Italian breakfast tart with a buttery crust and filled with chocolate or lemon. Our first call for collazione (breakfast) came from the nearby morning bells from the Cattedrale di San Lorenzo at 8 a.m.

On this trip, we toured the entire Italian Riviera from Ventimiglia (above) on the French border to Portofino near the Ligurian border with Tuscany. In total, Italy has nearly 5,000 miles of coastline (way more than France), and all of it is breathtakingly beautiful.

Though nearly 75 percent is mountainous, Italy has beaches extending from Nice, France -- down the boot and back up the other side -- to Croatia, nearly double the average width of the U.S. Hard to believe, but it’s true. My paesano peeps certainly love their beaches; they can be found there most of the time during the summer season.

The architecture in the core of Genoa tends to be neoclassic -- from the 18th and 19th centuries, though the walls of the Porta Soprana date to the 12th century, and the Cattedrale di San Lorenzo was built in the 16th century.

The neoclassical flavor is particularly evident in the city’s financial district adjacent to Piazza De Ferrari: witness the neoclassical turret next to Jory from the top of the Porta Soprana.

The art -- both of the ancient variety and the more contemporary, as well as the clerical and the secular -- is provocative.

The old harbor was totally renovated in 1992 to mark the 500th anniversary of the first voyage of Christopher Columbus to the "new world," as it were. The broad walkways around the Porto Antico feature both art (right) and artifacts, including an authentic pirate vessel.

A statue in the church near the train station in Ventimiglia was particularly compelling. Saint Roch, the patron saint of dogs and dog lovers, tended the sick in Italy during an epidemic of the plague. Falling ill himself, and at the brink of death, a dog lay down beside him, licking his wounds. The dog brought him bread and soon, St. Roch miraculously recovered. He then resumed healing people in plague-stricken villages.

The people, as illustrated by our hosts, the Sterlocchis (below, with their cocker spaniel "Milo"), were a delightful lot. Patrizia Sterlocchi even hosted us -- and a retired couple from Paris, both physicians -- for an “apertivo and cocktail hour” of baked anchovies, olives, beer and Italian champagne on the dining room terrace.

The staff at Trattoria Alle Due Torri and La Mama Pizzeria and Ristorante led the way in terms of service. They certainly had the most friendly and accommodating servers, and they excelled in seafood pasta and pizza, respectively.

A few of the servers at other “ristorantes” were aloof, edgy or absent. Speaking of edgy, I was pleased to see my old buddy, Nico, still mixing it up at the Café Barbarossa.

You knew this discussion would lead back to food, didn’t you. After all, nearly everybody comes to Italy for the food, right? In the homeland of my forebears, I believe the expression is “tutti a tavola!” (everyone to the table!).