Liguria – Tuscany

Hey guys, I provide you some new stuff from my trip! My 3rd and 4th week from my trip were warm and breezy. Now that I was first time at the sea and eating seafruit, I really start to feel Italy more and more.

After Torino I went further to Genova, where at first I was astonished about the big cruiseships that were in the port. Everybody knows that they are big, but did you see them once live? They’re ridiculously huge!

In Genova I found a BJJ gym, but since the professor has backache and doesn’t roll anymore the team is taking it easy with sparring and nobody showed up to the saturday class, so I spent the rest of the day wandering around Genova and having some nice looks over the city.

Genova is a really special City, the streets are really narrow and the structure of it is literally build around the port. The motorcycle in Genova is much more convenient than a car and I never thought I’d struggle to find my vespa in a parking lot, cause there are thousand of them everywhere!

The next day I did a trip to the famous cinque terre, some 5 villages near the beach, where car’s are not allowed. An area with 4’000 resident’s seeing 2.4 Million Tourist’s per year. I trekked all day long along the coast and since BJJ is the only sport I do, my legs hurted on going upstairs the next 3 days…

After Genova I had an 4 hour ride to Carrara with the vespa, where I met an old school friend of mine who coincidentally was around there at the same time. Carrara is known as a marble mining area and the Art’s University and that’s pretty much it. My friend is a photographer, so he took me around the marble mine’s that were pretty astonishing. This were some hidden gem’s, that most tourist won’t know about it. 

On another day he took me to the “Boca de la Luna”, where art’s student do grill & outdoor party’s. Being surrounded by tall wall’s gave me a beautiful feeling, but it wasn’t good to capture it on photo. The scenery was like a hidden place where you’ll find an enlightened buddha who gives you the deepest, philosophical advice to become world champion in BJJ. Or where you find an endboss of a game.

Speaking about BJJ, Carrara had also a little gym, led by a blackbelt. Michele was an amazing guy, he was so happy that I visited him and when he saw that I was struggling with single leg-x guard, he just showed some passing and submission techniques on the other day from this position to improve my BJJ. I came 30 minutes late, because I thought it started by that time I arrived at the gym and Michele and the other student’s WAITED for me to show me the techniques!!! How amazing is that?!

After Carrara I drove to Lucca, where I found a host on Couchsurfing. He usually doesn’t host men alone, but since he saw that I do BJJ, he wanted to learn some moves because he work’s as a police officer. The most amazing thing about him was that he had an original sized sword of the Anime “Berserk” made of steel (Sidenote: one of the most amazing Anime’s. If you didn’t watch it, poor you).

Lucca is really near from Pisa, so I checked that out. I thought: “well, it’s just a leaning tower…”. But the place where that tower is situated is huge. The cathedral and the chapel next to the tower were astonishing and then i recognized why Pisa is known all over the world.

In Lucca there was also a BJJ gym led by a blackbelt. When I asked him: “How much do I need to give you for the Trainings?” he replied: “A hug”. Even though I was hugged enough around my neck while doing sparring with him, I hugged him. Share love whenever it’s possible, right? ;) In the evening he then sent me a message: “Whenever you’re in Lucca again, my gym is your gym”. Oss Professor!!

See you next week

OSS