Via Torone, Forio

A short street with stone parapets leads to the Torrione Tower, rising steeply up the hill. So if you don’t make it to the tower, you can still get a good look at its surroundings.

On the hill next to the tower, there is a neat white house, and from the platform in front of it, you can see the central part of Forio.

First of all, the austere facade of the Church of Saint Vitus, also located on an elevated site, catches the eye.

This part of the city is located outside the historical part with dense buildings, so houses are scattered chaotically on the hillside, mixed with manicured plantations of greenery.

A typical local house has a flat roof (terraza), which is accessed via an external stone staircase.

Houses have large, well-maintained courtyards that are used in different ways. Some people create a decorative area, while others use them for garden beds.

The soils here are exceptionally fertile; there is a theory that the city’s name comes from the Latin “fhoros” – fertility.

Greens are grown in the beds and immediately supplied to cafes and restaurants. There are also orchards with fruit trees.

For some reason, there’s a widespread belief that Italians, especially those in the south, are a lazy people. However, people everywhere are busy from early morning until late at night. In addition to working in gardens and vegetable plots, residents are constantly building something — extensions and new floors added to houses, utility buildings, stone fences.

There is no division into neighborhoods for the poor and the rich here; simple farmhouses peacefully coexist with luxurious villas.

Returning from the hill, I noticed the gates of the houses, decorated with figures made of tuff. Instead of the usual lions, dogs, or gnomes, the small sculptures depict people in various poses.

What caught my attention was a strip on the asphalt running along the wall. At first, I thought it was some kind of curb separating the sidewalk from the roadway, but then I remembered that a hundred meters up the street, a crew was working on laying cable. A small machine cuts a narrow groove in the road, into which the cable is unwound from a drum; two workers immediately cover it and pour concrete over it. No dirt, no potholes, no traffic hindrances, and no risk of breaking your legs... I was reminded of our municipal excavations, which have been poisoning the lives of pedestrians and drivers for months.