Log book

Adriatica is about to enter Alassio harbour, enwrapped to the north by a crown of mountains that seems to be able to protect it from the winds. Although it ensures natural protection, Patrizio asks the commander of Alassio harbour, Elisabetta Pirami, for further information on the winds that prove critical at the entrance. The winds of the first and fourth quadrants are very critical, and hence the southeast and east ones and, in winter, also the northeast one. You need to be careful naturally keeping to the middle of the access channel.

With them there is also the manager of Alassio harbour, Marino Agnese, and Patrizio asks him for information on some technical aspects like the maximum size of boats that can enter and the number of available places: Alassio harbour takes boats in transit up to 35 metres long and resident ones up to 30 metres. There are 550 boat places including fishing units, state boats, resident boats and boats in transit. Among the services provided there is mooring assistance with a dinghy, and then there are shops, two boatyards, a bar, a bar restaurant and ... a disco! There is a bilge disposal centre with a facility for separating any oils from the water. From the meteorological point of view there is a weather station that you can consult on the internet and a local weather station for the area from Saint Tropez to Elba including Capo Corso.

Having said goodbye to his two hosts, Patrizio meets Sergio Gaibisso, president of Alassio harbour, who introduces the sailors that frequent the area: “Here we have a big community of sailors because there is a tradition of regattas. We have participated in world cups of all classes. Besides, here every year there are events that belong to a circuit of national regattas and therefore the meeting is regularly repeated between our people and those that come from outside. It’s the most beautiful thing of the sailing sport.”

Patrizio points out that Liguria has invested a lot in the creation of new harbours, prompting his interlocutor to say his opinion about it: “We say something,” Sergio Gaibisso answers. “For a start we have arrived late compared to the French because help has been missing by the institutions, for bureaucratic reasons. Let’s not forget that eight, ten kilometres away we have an airport and the motorway is really near. Developing some tourist structures is also in the interest of the economy of the area.”

The infrastructures are there, the port structures too. Let anyone who wants to go by boat speak up!

The harbour provides the following services:

• Financial services - ATM
• Health transport
• Wi-Fi
• Maritime bureaucratic services
• Laundromat
• Bilge disposal
• Sea rescue
• Short-stay car park
• Long-stay car park
• Post
• Broker services
• Catering services
• Pharmacy
• Services for animals

The Alassio wall

Syusy meets the artist and gallery owner Mario Berrino, the animator of the artistic evenings of Alassio in the 1950s, who in the postwar period invented and inaugurated the extraordinary tradition of the Alassio wall! A long wall, today to all intents and purposes a “pop art work”, on which over the years famous characters passing through Alassio have sealed the moment by leaving their signatures in the form of coloured ceramics tiles. The first one to leave a sign was Ernest Hemingway, in love with this place and an assiduous holidaymaker here ... Since then the honour of having a tile on the wall has been granted to many well-known writers, artists, and other characters ... also instigating a certain competition to “be there!”

How did the idea come into being? At the beginning Mario Berrino preserved the signatures in a paper album, but when the album was stolen from him he felt it was a good idea to think up something that was it impossible to take away: the wall! Characters passing through then began to leave their dedications on sheets that Mario gave to the Albissola potters to turn them into artistic tiles to set in stone! Over the years Mario has also discovered a great truth: the more important characters are, the more modest they are ... The “war for the tile at all costs” is an unequivocal sign of undeserved notoriety!

Syusy is convinced of it: the Alassio wall really is a work of outdoor pop art. And to think it came into being as ... an anti-theft device!