Faber's Genoa

Good morning Folkriders,

In the extensive bibliography available on Fabrizio De Andrè , which we avidly consulted for this tour too, we found no trace of any relationship, not even youthful, not even casual, between the great singer-songwriter and the bicycle. And this shouldn't be surprising, if you think about it. Are you familiar with Genoa ? Its mule tracks that soar from the sea to the sky, squeezed into a maze of buildings, alleys, tunnels and breaths of the Mediterranean? Well, today, descending the steps of Pegli station, we launch our challenge to this treasure chest-city, astride the WG 116 G SARAWAK TIGER . Making sure that the bicycle is truly the key to unlocking this treasure chest, perhaps a little closed, almost agoraphobic, certainly generous to those who aren't afraid to get under its skin, and emerge with a bit of saltiness on their backs. As mentioned, we've built this adventure around the figure of Faber (as his historical sneering companion, Ugo Fantozzi, born Paolo Villaggio), with the clear intent of retracing the paths, the places—but above all, the non-paths and non-places—that saw him first as a boy, then as a man, but always and everywhere a poet, chronicler, a free and curious spirit. In a word, a troubadour. Yes, that word from which all our dreams begin.

In our homage to De Andrè, we feel it's a fitting occasion to pay tribute to what many have identified—perhaps simplistically and hastily—as the Genoese school of songwriting. Gino Paoli, Bruno Lauzi, Umberto Bindi, Luigi Tenco , and we'd even add Vittorio De Scalzi , leader of the New Trolls, and you'll forgive us if we forget a few. They weren't all Genoese by birth; they weren't a loose group of homogeneous, easily canonizable artists. They were musicians, composers, diverse souls, who absorbed rich and diverse influences, from jazz to French song, to usher in what we like to call the Genoese era, a turning point in the history of Italian song.

When Genoa and its youth knew how to listen, rework, invent, and tell stories, thus becoming, in this strict sense, a school in the world.

A Genoese period we retrace with Fabrizio, in keeping with the city's predominantly longitudinal development. And in strict keeping with its trajectory, we can only begin where, on February 18, 1940, Fabrizio Cristiano De Andrè was born: on this sunny winter Sunday, Pegli is a corner of prestige and history that already feels like spring. Faber's birthplace is at Via de Nicolay 12 , where a plaque still commemorates him. "You can't miss it, you'll see it on the right as you enter the street, and further down, there's already the sea," a gentleman reassures us when we ask for directions. The photograph is already postcard-worthy as we walk down toward the seafront, bathed in the January sun. Gino Paoli, a painter by vocation, spent his youth in Pegli, and it wouldn't be surprising to imagine that he spent a long time practicing his craft here, capturing the evocative views that peek out between the villas and churches nestled on the hills. The WG 116 G SARAWAK TIGER is already ready to cross the Varenna stream: passing through Via Ronchi and Via Merano, the pulsating arteries of western Genoa, we head towards the center. Not before, however, encountering the industrial heart of Western Genoa , the shipyards of Sestri Ponente and the heavy industry hub of Sampierdarena . From Pegli the change is notable, even in the climate: the mild warmth gives way to a cold sea wind, which relentlessly lashes the roads we travel and forces us to tighten our grip on the handlebars to resist significant lateral swells. We are in western Genoa that becomes Hamburg. Or Liverpool, if you prefer. We are in the shipyard city buffeted by a north wind almost capable of making steel malleable and bending it to its will. We are in the neighborhoods that perhaps convey the most authentic image of a city that is both a crossroads of transit and a stalwart of the nautical industry. Today, as at the end of the Second World War, it is a city of new Genoese. But also of old ones. When Fabrizio de Andrè, just over twenty-two, left his father's house with his wife Puny and son Cristiano, he lived for a while in Sampierdarena, on Via San Bartolomeo del Fossato : it would have been logistically closer to the then Palazzi Institute, run by his father, where, between his first compositions and his new family, he served as administrative manager. But before Sampierdarena, from which, turning toward the sea, you can see the Lanterna, symbol of the Superba, there is still a (windy) road to travel. In Sestri Ponente, we only realized this later, re-examining our route, and crossed the Chiaravagna stream , which remains in memory following the 2010 flood. The neighborhood that connects the two industrial areas, Cornigliano , begins right here, winding between the airport, the steelworks, and the Ansaldo port, before ending a few kilometers further on, on the banks of the Polcevera River . Yes, the very protagonist, implacable in its fury, of the song "Dolcenera," from the 1996 masterpiece "Anime Salve." All this is fundamental: in Genoa, rivers, streams, and rivulets are nothing other than the veins of a city-organism, which cannot do without water, on pain of losing its bearings, perhaps even its very essence. Even when water is an expression of nature's fury. The wind, however, continues to blow, Sampierdarena slowly fades behind us, while the WG 116 G SARAWAK TIGER sails quickly towards Piazza Dinegro and, finally, a cycle path. We approach the historic centre and the old port, on a trajectory that faithfully follows the subway, in what we like to call a three-dimensional experience: looking up, the Sopraelevata , symbol of everyday and commuter Genoa; to our right, the offices and construction sites gradually give way to the Aquarium , the Old Port, the Genoa Museum that would have been so appreciated by the viscerally rossoblù Faber, a modern, commercial, dynamic area. But let's not talk about nightlife! We always get scolded by our local friends about it! What is to our left, however, is 100% Genoa. Like Homeric caves, as if to heed the sirens' call to a forbidden darkness, the alleys and narrow streets express the sounds of the Superb City like nothing else. De Andrè's most creative, anarchic, and genuine youth remains in these alleys, in the minor-key, solemn melody emanating from Via del Campo , where adolescent exuberance already mingled with the poet's sensitivity.

With GPS turned off, we ride our bikes through the alleys, searching for a well-greased focaccia (“ Damn , without lard!” recommends a young man we ask for advice) or a plate of trofie with pesto, as we imagine Fabrizio made after school, amidst the hubbub of tourists and shopkeepers, locals and foreigners , as they are called in these parts. A perfect mix for the vibrant, multicultural, tradition-loving nature of the WG 116 G SARAWAK TIGER , which, having emerged from the narrow streets, heads back towards Corso Aurelio Saffi . The road begins to climb, but even higher up, on the left, stands the bell tower of the Basilica of Carignano , where De Andrè said farewell to his city on February 13, 1999, in an enviable funeral, as his friend Paolo Villaggio pointed out. We're a little envious ourselves, to be honest, as we take in the view at the end of Corso Saffi: before the descent toward the Foce neighborhood, on the right you can see the new Palasport, evocative, modern, almost science fiction-like. Guess who the square on which it stands is named? Giuseppe De Andrè , Fabrizio's father and a prominent figure in the city's politics and business community in the 1960s.  Piazza De Andrè is already starting to present us with important choices about our next destinations: torn between reaching Foce or Boccadasse via the splendid sea-view bike path of Corso Italia (Fabrizio, already famous, also lived here for a time), we choose the latter. It's truly impossible to regret this choice: it feels like heading to Atlantis, riding the Stairway to Heaven. Corso Italia is imposing, elegantly claiming its space, a blend of art and modernity with a breathtaking view of the sea. Boccadasse , on the other hand, isn't immediately visible. From the saddle, you can simply sense it; it's a peephole onto the sea, which explodes in its most vivid colors once you reach the Belvedere. A descent, as they call it, that is a portrait, a photograph on film that knows no wear. The WG 116 G SARAWAK TIGER , before setting off again, happily rests on the wall of the little square. But just to breathe in the sea air before facing a new dilemma: continue north, passing through Genova Sturla (in this area there was also Da Gianni, a restaurant owned by Vittorio de Scalzi's father) and tackling the climb to San Desiderio (where Faber played as a midfielder in his youth soccer matches), or return to the center, passing through the Albaro neighborhood. We choose option number two, turning left onto Via De Gaspari. Albaro is an elegant residential area, made even more charming by the quiet of Saturday mornings. The poet George Byron also spent time there, although—and this is very useful for our purposes—it is a deeply, viscerally De André-esque area. From Via De Gaspari , for example, just take Via Gorgona and you will find yourself in Via Camilla , the home of Piero Repetto , a Latin and Greek professor who suffered from polio and was left disabled as a result, but above all a true host of the Genoese upper middle class of the 1960s.  At the Repetto household, boredom was out of the question; friends came and went at all hours of the day and night, brightening up the professor's daily routine. We like to imagine the explosive duo of De Andrè and Villaggio singing him a primitive version of "Il Fannullone"; more than a song, a manifesto for their lives back then! And who knows, perhaps, once they left that place of bacchanals, the two friends took the exact same route we did, leaving behind Via Righetti and Via Gobetti to Largo Escrivà, which intersects with Via Piave, at the end of which are the Bagni San Nazaro bathhouses , long frequented by the young Fabrizio.

The WG 116 G SARAWAK TIGER, however, does not descend towards the sea, but continues to the intersection between Via Nizza and Via Trieste, from which there is a remarkable view: the Foce quadrilateral, another symbolic district of Genoa's singer-songwriters, is below. To reach it, we enter Via Trieste (Fabrizio famously also lived here), pass Via Cesare Battisti and the Diaz school , attended by the future singer-songwriter and later in the news for the events surrounding the 2001 G8 summit, and then return to Via Trento to the intersection with the subsequent descent towards Corso Torino. This position is privileged, because it allows us to observe the park of Villa Bombini-Saluzzo, which to those familiar with our history will certainly be better known as Villa Paradiso , partly inhabited by the De Andrè family until the mid-1960s. We stop just before the descent of Via Saluzzo: Albaro has truly won us over, but with equal enthusiasm we arrive at Foce , once a seedy area of dockworkers and fixers, now a renovated and lively neighborhood. We have only one goal: to reach Via Cecchi , which intersects with Corso Torino, where a key figure for De Andrè once lived: Riccardo Mannerini , the blind poet, an anarchist with a capital P, a fierce bard of the human soul as well as a consistent practitioner of a life on the edge, of rules, of sociability, of ideals. His poem "Eroina" was the decisive influence on " Cantico dei Drogati ," taken from the album Tutti Morimmo a Stento . One of his lyrics, reworked by Faber and set to music by Vittorio De Scalzi, gave rise to one of the most famous songs by the New Trolls: "Signore, Io sono Irish ." And the coincidence seems incredible to us: the bicycle is central to this song, expressed as a metaphor for the search for faith, for the drive beyond the rational, for the concrete and willing realization of one's daily toils . It seems to us that a circle has come full circle, because with the bicycle and with De Andrè we discovered Genoa, its faces and its contradictions, all expressed in a strip of land between sea and mountains, between dawn and dusk, between poetry, anger, sin, and redemption.

In this sense, Genoa is, absolutely, profoundly, a city for cycling. 

From Corso Torino, Via XX Settembre and Piazza De Ferrari are just a few minutes' walk, straight uphill, toward the heart of the city. Toward the epicenter of De Andrè's Genoa, lively and kissed by the winter sun. The list would be long and prestigious: on Via XX Settembre was the Teatro Margherita, witness to Fabrizio's first public performances; a few meters away, on Via Maragliano , was the headquarters of Karim, his first record label; in Piazza De Ferrari , was the Cambusa, the club where he first met Luigi Tenco. Admitting, both brazenly and candidly, to having "borrowed" him as the author of Quando , just to have more success with the girls. In Piazza De Ferrari, the WG 116 G SARAWAK TIGER lights up in the reflections of the large fountain, suspended between amazement and melancholy, at the end of a journey of a few kilometers but many pages yet to be written.

A hopeful melancholy, dear Folkriders, which is perhaps the true genetic trait of this enigmatic Genoa, or perhaps just a little like that and that's it, as Paolo Conte, another who fully understood Genoa, would have said.  An ever-suspended aura envelops the city, an aura reminiscent of spices, of fresh fish, not sweet, but sour, raw, unrefined, sometimes noble, superb when necessary, but always terribly free of frills and frills. Perhaps precisely for all this, it's always ready to blossom.

After all, someone had taken care to underline it: flowers are not born from diamonds .

The link to the track is https://www.komoot.com/it-it/tour/2768836369