If I met someone special on the road

I think that even if we come from beautiful places, we tend to just take them for granted. We can’t see what visitors see, and what’s beautiful at their eyes looks normal to ours. Sometimes all we can do is complaining about our hometown, and after all, some of you left it, as I did. Right?

But when some friends come to visit us, then we just want to show them around and we rediscover our inner pride for the place we come from. And this happens to me all the time. Being away for a long time, and showing my hometown around, give me the “visitor eyes”, and it feels so good!

Now, let’s say I met someone special here in Egypt. Let’s say one day we’ll go to Italy together. “Dear Someone Special”, I’d like to show you around… and so my mind went through all the places I’d like you to see.

Dear Someone Special, we’ll fly to Genova together. My house is there now even if I grew up in a small town nearby. But I can’t wait to show you my favorite parts of the City. Genova has almost 1 million inhabitants, it’s not a big city, but it’s unique. Modern buildings and ancient sailors’ homes coexist in the same urban space, and I just love the result.

I would take you to the harbor.

I would show you my beautiful city, where the mountains dip directly into the water. A city surrounded by the beautiful colors of green mountains and blue sea.

I would show you my house with my “Egyptian corner” and my map of the world, full of magnets indicating the places I visited and the ones I want to visit.

I would take you to Boccadasse, the old sailors’ harbor in the heart of Genova… Something you don’t find in any other city. A place to relax and forget about everything…

And after that small tour of my city, I’d take you to my hometown, Santa Margherita Ligure. The place where I never felt comfortable, blame it on it being a small town, blame it on whatever… but it’s still such a lovely place full of colors and beauty.

I would show you what I like and what I hate, yes I’d be honest. And maybe you’d find something I never noticed, and I could appreciate it more than when I was a child…

I would show you the worldwide-famous Portofino, the place where I worked for 3 years but I never really loved. People come there from all over the world even just to drink a coffee in the small square on the sea, or to celebrate their weddings. VIPs are all around. I remember meeting all the cast from “Beautiful” there, as well as Bono, Rod Stewart, and many more.

Dear Someone Special, I’m sure you’d love it! And looking at these pictures now, I can’t say I miss those places but I can say I’m happy I come from that area. I never thought it was so beautiful before but now, with an external point of view, I am impressed.

Dear Someone Special, this is where I come from. But there’s something else I’d love to show you. It’s another place where I used to work, and I loved it at first sight, I still love it and will always do. Yes I do miss this place and the people I met there. It’s in another region of Italy called Piemonte, and its name is Monterotondo Resort, on the small Monterotondo hill.

Dear Someone Special, we’d have a romantic dinner with a stunning view of the sunset over the vineyards, sipping delicious wine in the candle light.

Dear Someone Special, this is not all. I’d take you back to my region (Liguria) and show you the Cinque Terre. They are 5 tiny villages close to each other, but there are no streets in between. We could hike the steep paths to reach the next one, but as I am super lazy I would probably go for the ferry. My favourite village is Vernazza. I hope you like it.

The next thing I’d show you is my favourite place in the area. It’s called Portovenere (Venus Harbor) and I just love the colors. Would you like to see it, Dear Someone Special?

So this is where I come from. Thank you, Dear Someone Special, because if I didn’t meet you I would never write about these destinations, and probably I would never feel like I am proud of my hometown.