Shawn L. Bird

A couple of years ago we went on a vacation to Italy.  We were only there a couple of weeks, but we were enchanted by each place we visited.  One of our favorites was Vernazza, Cinque Terre, Italy.  The Cinque Terre is made up of five towns that were formerly part of the kingdom of Genoa.  Four of the five hillside towns have little or no automobile traffic.  You can see why here!  The houses are connected by picturesque narrow alley ways and lots of stairs.

Vernazza was hit by a flash flood / landslide in October 2011.  We rented an apartment when we visited here.  It was in the building between the yellow and green ones.  Our window was the second one above the white arch being filled with mud.  This is an incredible video.  So much power.

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This slideshow was created by tourists.  It is amazing.  One thing that I thought when I first saw the pictures of this event was how it explains the strange layering of streets that you see in some places in Italy, like Rome.  There is a disaster like this, and people effected just build on top of the rubble.  The street next door might be thirty feet lower.  That’s civilization in motion, at the mercy of nature.  As usual.