At the risk of repeating myself, Imperia is my new favourite city! Telling that both cities are Italian coastal towns squished up against the mountains. Imperia is much quieter than Genova. Slower, more relaxed, less crowded. Definitely cleaner with less graffiti. But still beautiful and compact with amazing baking and wonderful friendly people and interesting architecture.
It certainly helped that our apartment had an incredible balcony at the top of Parasio overlooking the harbour. Private and tucked back out of the wind but still catching the morning (and afternoon) sun.
Here is the opposite picture of us on the beach (just above the coffee in the first pic). Our deck was right in the middle of the top of that hill.
Imperia is an amalgamation of three old towns. We stayed in Porto Maurizio which was extremely compact and walkable and built so steeply up the hill it felt like a 3D maze.
The city even provides public elevators at various points to move people between levels.
The church near our house was a handy landmark to get home while we were sorting the lay of the land.
The local park where Mikaya would show off her moves.
Back to the deck! We were in Imperia for 8 days and the first few we did a lot of relaxing.
In between relaxing we explored the mostly pedestrian streets. I couldn’t imagine owning a car in this town, and especially not our sequoia! Most vehicles had scrapes on their sides and dents in their fenders. Motorbikes commonly zipped down the middle of the road or in and out of oncoming traffic.
Our street. Via Zara.
More relaxing.
Apparently Imperia gets a lot busier in July and August when it gets hot, but there was still a fun beach scene in late May. Even though it was only 20-23degrees the sun made it feel way hotter, especially late morning when it was doubled off the water.
The breakwater on the harbour made a beautiful walk.
Back to the park!
This is us in Imperia.
Our apartment was spacious and lovely. Most of the books were in Italian but they did have a huge DVD collection including all the Harry Potter movies. Handy as Levi had just finished the series.
Via Zara again. What a lovely street.
They even had a tiny library. Who knew there were tiny libraries 500 years ago?
All the boys were in need of a haircut so Zeke and I set out to obtain one from the local barber. Imperia feels much smaller than its 40,000 population bc it’s divided into 3 centres and this shop was clearly central to this community. While waiting we saw so many passers by stick their head in to say ciao, or ask a question or book an appt (nothing written down).
The barber was very confident despite zero English. A few words of Italian and a picture (1000 words clearly) and he got it right in 10 minutes.
Zeke and Ty and I went for a couple runs through town. There’s no avoiding the hills!! After a hot slog along the waterfront admiring yachts, we started back up the steeeeep stair side and had to slow to a hike.
Still moving fast along the ocean.
Zeke planning his future.
Coming back up we had to enter through the old city wall. This tunnel/gate was built in 1530! How long was the wall standing before that?? Who engineered a tunnel through a giant city wall?
Back to the park. The first half of our trip was a relax/explore/eat repeat rhythm.
Relaxing and eating at the same time!
Kylie and I got out one night for a dinner on our own. This lovely taverna was steps from our front door and the pasta was amazing.
Seaside walk before dinner.
Morning bakery run. Zeke is almost always up for any outing.
Many small Italian towns are dotted with public water fountains. They are typically labelled when they are not potable, so we assume the non labelled ones are safe! Have gotten away with it so far.
One day I took the younger kids out exploring and we found some ancient stairways cut into the rock to bring us down to the shore.
Functional binoculars! We could see the people in the boats on the water, and also Zeke’s nose hairs.
8 days is too much for one post. Still up, beach days and Levi’s birthday!
Marc has been reading the kids “The Lord of the Rings” on and off since New Zealand. Here they are enjoying it in the Italian countryside. 
In Asti the girls found some fun shops and nice parks and the boys fed cabbage to turtles.
Our last day in Belvedere we did a hike to a giant bench and our neighbour gave us a taste of the honey from his bees. Then we dropped off our rental van, said goodbye to Grandma at the airport and hopped on a train to Imperia!
