SESTRI LEVANTE
Monday to Wednesday, October 20 – 22, 2014
I often tell people that I am going to Sestri Levante where Jesus takes his holiday. Really, it is one of the nicest small cities I have ever visited in all of Italy. It is quaint, charming and extremely active being located right on the sea. This is where I like to roost when I am FORCED to take up residence in the Italian Riviera some twenty-five minutes south of Portofino.
Sestri could be expensive so I thought (money running low) that I would try to find a room on Air B & B. This was the first time for me but I landed a spot on my first try. Vincenzo (not his real name) got right back to me and offered me three nights in his house only two blocks from the sea and a short walk from the train station. He would even do better by picking me up and having a little supper ready for me when I arrived. I rushed and reached Sestri by 9 at night. He was right there to fetch me.
From the beginning he was incredibly attentive so I got much more than a room. Little did he know what he was in for nor did I. I brought with me a cold with a certain amount of hacking and nose blowing not to mention a case of diarrhea, so I spent the night up and down. Happily, in the morning he claimed that he hadn’t heard a thing.
I got around as best I could and he took me to the city on bicycles for coffee and a brioche. This took a lot out of me but I made it. Vincenzo was an interesting fellow who speaks five languages. He is originally from Milano, moved her five years ago, turned out to be sixty-three years old and just married for the second time to a 26 year old Brazilian. She works in Milano as a model but in the two full days I was there, I saw no evidence of her existence. Not a feminine item or picture in the house but I know it is true since he showed me a one hour video of the wedding ceremony.
Over the days he acquainted me with his life as Rouge, telling me of his continual escapades with young beauties from the discotheque. I saved myself until the last when I finally said to him as he let me off at the train, “Vincenzo, would you mind if I gave you some last advice?” So, he was quite excited to hear me since we had shared rather good comradery during the two days. While getting out of the Volvo, I carefully quoted Jesus, “What does it profit a man if he should gain the entire world and in the process lose his own soul?’ Jesus said that” On several occasions he had mentioned how you only live once and I had agreed with a certain caution that sex was something but it isn’t everything. He seemed to think and talk of nothing else. Often he took up his phone to show me his many young conquests.
Since we had lunch on Tuesday with a young Senegalese Muslim who would neither eat pork or drink wine but seemed to have no problem with sex, I just said one more thing, “Vincenzo, the Muslim’s will eventually take Italy from the Catholic Church because Catholicism and Italians are empty.”
4 Euroinformation 