Seaside of Antignano. The town in background
Livorno is an airy sea town, wind-ruffled and briny-scented, bathed by a crystalline light that intensifies colours, and mellowed by stunning sunsets. The weather tends to be good most of the time, apart from the odd squall that is usually fleeting – the wind will soon get rid of it – and days whipped by the south-west wind libeccio (big trouble if you get wind and rain together! Umbrellas go flying and Livorno folk, even though wise to it, end up soaked to the skin). The climate is generally mild all year, with early springs and summer often dragging on till October. This great climate obviously encourages the locals to go out and, since they adore the sea, they head for the seafront, which is one of the most beautiful and longest in Italy.
Livorno people are perma-bronzed – the beaches along the coast are mobbed all day from early March. The true-blue Livornese will pop to the beach at his lunch break, have a swim and head back to the office; the cold doesn’t bother him, you’ll see him plunging into the sea all year long. Livorno is a modern city, a unique one-off compared to all the other towns in Tuscany. It is the Renaissance “ideal city”, designed meticulously and methodically by the Medici Dynasty: a wide sheltered harbour, fortresses for defence, broad, straight streets, an immense parade ground and navigable canals. The Livorno of today is a town that is pleasant to live in, on account of wide open spaces, its stunning sea vistas, its endless horizons and easy-to-reach nearby attractions. It’s also pleasant to visit – in a way, it’s a “hidden” city, overshadowed by the obvious charms of the other Tuscan towns invaded by mass tourism, for this reason long remaining unknown. Livorno, modern and laid-back, has many surprises in store. |
Non mai da ’l cielo ch’io spirai parvolo ridesti, o Sole, bel nume, splendido a me, sí come oggi ch’effuso t’amo per l’ampie vie di Livorno. (Giosuè Carducci, Odi barbare) Sun-god, never from skies, which in earliest infancy beam’d on me, shone a radiance so welcome as thy light to-day poured o’er the piazzas of old Livorno. |