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1932  WALK ALONG THE SEA   
 

  It was an ambitious and imposing project, also if strange, the one of the cement on the bluff, almost an intervention to be considered «damned». Instead, little by little the project proposed its own validity and a new and rich content of meanings that was divided into two big directories which began to stand out on the paper at the end of the 1920s, not without delays and corrections. So the«two trunks», well delineated ,were born. On 31st March 1932, in progress of work, they had their names. «Waterfront Cristoforo Colombo» was the name given to the walk from Crepatura to Caletta up to the Three Rock-cliffs, at the end of Portovecchio harbour, before reaching the pinewood. «Waterfront Amerigo Vespucci» was defined the line that with slightly different characteristics slightly but always with serpentine course and with thick backs of cement went from the Ausonia bathing establishment» up to Righini promontory, vanishing in front of the enormous and almost impassable massive structure of the overhanging rocks, like fantastic and huge figures , spread at random. How much did the jobs last? For once let us keep it all rather vague: a lot of time, years. How much did it cost? The figure was never quantified but it cost a lot of money. .This is confirmed by the payment of the last of the numerous lots, which dates back to 1936 and was paid to the Serredi firm for a very substantial amount of money without counting the emoluments due to Ruffo Franceschi for work of embellishment and obstruction. The cement on the bluff. Starting from Crepatura. Immediately after the beach of Caletta, at the end of Marradi avenue, the level strip to embrace the inlet, with a slender bridge, even, on the ditch at the beginning of the Park Uzzielli Park, then the first dock, after the deviation to graze the dock, sunk down there, among rocks interrupted only by an agile stairway. It was a surly shelter but excellently devised, minuscule, stony, sure. The waterfront continued to conform to the "pungenti" before arriving to the fresh little fountain of the park, defended eternally in vain by a net broken by the thirsty swimmers, with the red shelter of the brief little beach reserved to the nuns of St. Joseph nearby . Soon after an unexpected curve, with a rock-cliff almost insinuated on the pedestrian road, then the opening into Portovecchio harbour with its docks and the curvilinear course in front of the sand that existed then and that was prolonged up to the stores of the Faccenda family, before reaching the so-called «Granchiaia» and finishing with a short stairway on the sea and with a terraced avenue that went forwards into the superb green of the pinewood. 
The cement on the bluff. It continued from the hotel Miramare, coasting along the «Bagnetti», the splendid gulf full of beach umbrellas. Further, after the bending the barrier was divided into a taller wall, and lower with a round embankment, always in cement like a seat. They had respected in full the course of the rock-cliffs, the one of the footsteps to sea of the villas, and there were minuscule docks of berth and sudden approaches toward the inside up to where the waterfront was stretched in front of the «Mugginara» to reach the last stairway then, in front of Righini cape. From here, the uncontaminated beauty of the promontory appeared mighty and bristling, also stately and jagged, among the huge rocks to serve as a guard to the fury of the sea, in a sight of wild and severe greatness. Cement on the bluff. It was an uproarious success. It was a work of exploitation of a coast of a mutable and splendid beauty. They were two lines waterfront which become a kind of must in summer, especially on Sunday. Then people came from all the parts to walk both along the «Christopher Columbus» and the "Vespucci" and to observe the swimmers in the sun. An endless coming and going in the two senses, which was happy and festive. Almost a rite. Rather a real rite that always provoked alive feelings and pleasant suggestions. Even in time of war, up to the September of 1943, there were people, there was clamour. 
People under the sun, couples under the stars, to touch, with the heart in turmoil and with a finger, the sky and the sea. Thousand and thousand and thousand magics of the nights in summer, on the waterfront, from Crepatura to the Promontory, almost cannot be told. They were (and they are) charming. The smell of saltiness, the slow murmur of the backwash, the sky, up there, full of shines with suspended, sometimes, a scythe of moon, the rocky profiles of the rock-cliffs, the rocking of the boats in the tiny docks, the vegetation behind the shoulders, perfumed of holts and of junipers and of pines composed the scenography of dream that invited to love in the dark. 
The embraces, the caresses, the kisses, two on the little wall to whisper words, to exchange tender sentences, embraced, lost, and partly deaf, also to the song of the waves and partly blind also to of the rain of the falling stars in the intense trajectories like lightnings and , partly, forgetting of the time and of the place but bound, vibrating together, united as never. The cement on the bluff was also this. Then like today, on the waterfront. On the enchanted mystery of obscurity, splintered by fleeting blades of light.                                                       

The end