Beautiful day, warm and sunny. Smells of spring in the air, lots of flowers in bloom. Some old dude in full cowboy getup is smoking away on the bench next to us. Wonder what his story is.
Grosseto is a pleasant little city, provincial capital of this Maremma section of Tuscany. A news article yesterday said it's the fastest growing town in the country...but at the price of further depopulation of the little towns of the interior. People probably come here to get warm. And nice beaches are really close by.
At least Grosseto seems like a town of the living. Too many Italian towns and cities have an emptied-out feeling, at least in the off season. With good weather like this Grosseto seems full of energy, which may simply be proof of my hypothesis that Italy is two countries, of summer and of winter.
Whatever the case, I'm loving this face of Italy.
On to Rome, a city I love, in a few minutes. Lots of sunlight and warmth. And a room near the Pantheon, one of my shrines!
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Grosseto...? I've never thought for a moment that this town (where I live) would deserve a post in a blog in Italy, let alone one in USA.
You really are putting us on the map Therry, ehy people from the US, come and visit us!
Posted by: gianpaolo | March 19, 2008 at 05:53 PM
GP, I like Grosseto partly because it seems to be living its own life without a lot of tourist coaches and crappy souvenir shops. There are a lot of young people there and so it doesn't seem like a dying place, as so many towns in Italy do, where the young flee to cities with more opportunities. And there are beaches (always a good thing!) and plenty of nice vineyards around. A pretty good package all in all.
Posted by: TH | March 22, 2008 at 08:50 AM