Page 22 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Italian Riviera

20  INTRODUCING THE IT ALIAN RIVIER A

The inhabitants of one valley
would almost certainly be suspicious
of the inhabitants of a nei gh bouring
one. Such complex relation ships are
still part of everyday life in Liguria. To
further complicate matters, there has
been a steady exodus of people from
the mountains towards the coast.
While agriculture in the interior is
in decline, tourism on the coast
is booming.
Demographically, Liguria is in deep
water. It has the lowest birth rate in Italy,
making it the lowest in Europe, and an
unusually aged population: 25 per cent
of Ligurians are over 65 years old. One
reason for this is the influx of retirees,
attracted by Liguria’s warm climate.
The picturesque seaside town of Camogli, one of the most
attractive resorts along the Ligurian coast
town of witches; or the villages of
the Val di Vara. These places are just as
Ligurian as the gentrified ports that are
popular with the jet set.

The People
The temperament of the Ligurian
people can be said to vary according to
the character of the coast, being generally
more open and sunny on the beach-rich Retirees immersed in playing bocce, the local version of the French
Riviera di Ponente, and more terse and boules (game played with metal balls)
reserved along the rockier Riviera di
Levante. The writer Guido Piovene noted Tourism
in his Viaggio in Italia, published in the Tourism started in the Italian Riviera in the
1960s, that “The greatest diversity can 19th century, and it is now the dominant
be obser ved going from Genoa to the industry. The main attraction is, of course,
west. Here, the air of Provence breathes the coast, with its 300 km (186 miles) of
on a Liguria that is closed, laconic… sandy or pebbly beaches, cliffs and small
and lacking imagination, creating a islands. Many of the towns, and even the
loquacious, colourful Liguria of storytellers, old fishing villages, from San Remo to
a halfway link between the Genoese Portovenere, are now devoted to tourism.
and the Marseillais”. While in the most famous
There is also a third Liguria – seaside resorts there are
that of the mountainous grand hotels built for the
region behind the coast. visiting ari stocrats of the
Traditionally, the people of 19th century, many of
the mountains mistrusted not the old fishing villages
just the coastal folk but also the A typical gozzo, have a harbour rather
people living in the valleys. fishing dinghy than a beach, and are

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