Andiamo: 10/21–Livorno and hill towns

Last night started out a little rocky – and windy – but ended up just fine. We arrive in Livorno at our appointed 7AM time. It’s a zoo onboard – no hot water for the showers (hope that’s an anomaly) and a nightmare in the buffet. I grab the coffee and get the hell out of the way. I just sit at the table, programming the GPS while Ed forays into the food mania! Coffee’s fine for me thank you!

Done with sustenance, we hit the pier and grab our rental car – same place we always use, they know us by now. Would have bee way faster if we didn’t have to contend with the 8 Spaniards in front of us – 1 rental mind you – but they took up the whole counter and about 20 minutes of the owner's’ time. Fortunately one of his employees showed up and did our paper work – as we are walking to the car, the Spaniards decided our guy should show them to their car too – NOT. At least not until after us – which was the way it worked. Sheesh!

So – we’re out on the road – have a free GPS – which is just a larger Alice – and of course, some one has set her for shortest distance. Crap. No. We want fastest. Where’s the Autostrada? No, we don’t want back roads. We finally just ignore her and get on the A12, which all works fine – and truly she did get us to our first stop – Sant’Anna Di Stazemma – an abandoned hill town way, way up in the hills!

And hills there are. And goat paths for roads! Oh my! Once off the major roads, the little teeny barely 2 lane path up the mountain is incredible! Then add to that construction! Ed is getting his driving hours in – that's for certain.

WE finally reach our destination: Sant’Anna De Stazzema. There are quite a few ghost towns in Italy, and this is the first one we have visited. While some are abandoned after natural disasters, such as earthquakes or floods, Sant’Anna was left after a WWII Massacre where virtually all the inhabitants were eliminated. We don’t know the full story (will research it when we get internet access – it is WAY too pricey on the ship) but it seems the Nazi’s pretty much annihilated the entire population. The school house here has been turned into a museum (closed when we were there) but the plaque outside it states that of the 40 children here in 1944 , only 10 survived the massacre. Brutal.

The area is beautiful, what seems to be a peaceful village nestled among the mountains.

But, sadly, beneath the peacefulness lies a brutal war story. There is a memorial perched way up top on the crest of the mountain. The patch leading up to it is lined with carvings depicting the stations of the cross – alongside of each – a matching depiction of the Nazi brutalism. It is a stark – and scary – reminder of the horror that was wrought in the late ‘30s and early ‘40s here in Europe.

On top of the mountain, the fist thing we see is a little memorial temple on the side of the path, with the typical flowers and candles, but also an anti-Fascism flag. So poignant in its message.

Then opposite the temple, is a field of remembrance with incredible carvings that look like flocks of stone, but are actually faces carved out of squat pieces of quartz.

Then there is the monument itself. A huge almost obelisk, open at the center with a marble statue depicting mother and child – with an inscription memorializing the 560 people who died during the siege here.

It’s almost blasphemous to mention the view from the monument, which is stupendous – looking down over the coastline, and then up into the mountain ranges. Such a beautiful, bucolic atmosphere that was stained by such a horrendous act.