The past few weeks have been really, really, nice here. Every morning we have been waking to a clear blue sky and the temperature has been in the mid 60's to low 70's. We're back to our long daily walking regime, visiting locales old and new.
Springtime planting is beginning...
Garden tours are essential to plan your strategy...
Sometimes there are other priorities other than gardening...
No coats necessary today....
Flowers beginning to bloom...
The
Tanaro River flows past
Alessandria and is 276 km long. It has an Alpine origin, the
Ligurian Alps. We haven't explored it much (prior to recently) but on one of our long walks we found an area where we could access it more easily.
The Tanaro flows past the towns Ceva, Alba, Asti, and Alessandria before entering the bigger Po River (the longest river in Italy).
"The river is highly prone to flooding. During the two hundred year period 1801–2001 parts of the
Tanaro basin were affected by floods on 136 occasions, the most devastating being those of November 1994 when the whole of the river valley was affected by severe flooding and the town of
Alessandria was especially stricken." (
Wikipedia) Rita and her family have spoken of the 1994 flood. Her son in law, Alessandro, lost a good deal of photographic equipment in that flood. Where our little apartment stands was severely flooded as well the entire neighborhood. These trees are planted along the river and even though we don't know for sure, we have surmised that they are related to flood prevention.
The universal forsythia....
One interesting thing (for me) having discovered this "new area" of
Alessandria (by the river) is that the houses in this area are more single family dwellings...some have very large yards. Because they're up against a road that runs parallel to the river, we can see in their backyards and this is interesting to a snoopy person like myself...
Great looking raised beds; makes me really miss my garden.
An intrepid explorer...
A consultant told me that these are mighty sycamore trees...
We are not sure why they cut trees like this...very unpopular in the US but quite popular here.
A few other back yards...So great to see!
Springtime in Alessandria is a good time to stop and blow some bubbles....
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