The stones of albenga – or stripey rocks ftw!

Flying from Denver to Seattle, I’m scrounging around inside my purse looking for chapstick when I feel rocks. I love picking up rocks at the beach. Preferable stripey ones – I think all of us rock-picker-uppers have a particular kind we prefer.

Holding them in my hand and looking at the white stripes on the gray rocks, I’m thinking about where I picked them up, which would be the last time I used this purse, and Albenga, Italy – in Liguria on the coast west of Genoa. I’m remembering how struck I was by the boulders as we walked along on the beach, I mean big boulders, like this – dark gray with white veins running through them:

And just inland from them, the smaller rocks on the beach:

Wandering around, we could see where the smaller rocks on the beach had come from, and then we realized later that the tiles on the floors of buildings and streets and sidewalks in Albenga must have come from those same rocks (or others nearby):

This use of local material makes me so happy – especially seeing it right in front of me and putting it together myself. There’s something very satisfying about that. For me, part of traveling light is not always picking up my phone to look things up. I may look up the stones of Albenga one day, but I haven’t yet. For now, it’s magical and practical and sparks my sense of wonder.