Genzano di Lucania
WELCOME TO MY HUBPAGE GENZANO DI LUCANIA
The fountain called "la Cavallina" This is where horses and other animals would drink when they were in town
The same fountain with a bit more background
My Hub
Genzano di Lucania
Welcome to our hub, Genzano di lucania
I was born and grown in Genzano di Lucania
and you are invited to read my memories of my home town;
So, let me welcome again all those who
would like to read these articles of my native town, which is only a normal
small town in Italy Southern regions, perhaps some readers that have come from
this same town would like to read them just to remember the town that they came
from, others would read them just because it is a new article and are curious
of its content, whatever is their interest, let us hope that it is interesting
enough for them to read it.
Now, allow me to explain the situation to
our readers here, since I am an Italian born and grew in this town of Genzano
di Lucania, I suppose that most of my town people would have liked to see this
article written in Italian, since they are the people that would like to know
about this town; but that has not been possible to do for a couple of reasons, first
of all because our computer programs are in English and therefore it would be
hard to write in another language other than English, the other reason is that
the English language has a very large audience and also there are a lot of
migrated Italians that speak English now; you see, this article is aimed mainly
to the migrated Italians that are interested in their town of origin; so, I am
saying sorry to our Italian friends, I am sorry that my hub pages are written
in English, but it is easier for me as I happen to be in Australia, however I
am also writing a blog in blogger about Genzano and this is the link; http://genzanoit.blogspot.com, you
can visit it and there is a lot more about this Genzano town written in that
blog, there are also a few pages written in Italian, in the page section and
links that would help see many other things about this town and its writes as
well.
Now let me introduce myself again in this
article, so that my countrymen could know who I am, my name is, Francesco
Menchise and I was born and lived in Genzano di Lucania when I was young, So I
would like to salute all those who remember me, since I remember most of you
even today; greetings and all the best to you all my friends. I have to say
that while I am writing this article I feel that I miss something and I wish I
could see you all once again even if it is for a short while, you see even
today after a very long time I feel somehow homesick, well not really homesick,
but I would like to be back there once again.
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We hope that in this article we would be
able to talk about all the interesting things that we know about Genzano di
Lucania and for those that don't know where Genzano di Lucania is, you will
find a Google map here under to help you find it; here-under is also my welcome
text and a few links about Genzano and all you have to do is click on these
links to see their content; and other things. We wish you that our areticle
about Genzano brings to you joy and understanding and remembrance of Genzano di
Lucania that is if you happen to come from this town and if you are not from
this town just enjoy your reading anyhow and perhaps think about your town of
origin.
Here are some interesting links:
Here under is another Video of a concert held
near this town fountain called La Cavallina.
And again a feast of this Madonna showing
it in the old town
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Welcome to Genzano di Lucania
Genzano di Lucania
Dear readers I apologise for repeating many
things again, but you see there are a few things that come up at different
times and we are forced to start all over again.
Let me welcome you again to read about my
native town, yes Genzano di Lucania, is my
native town, because this is the town where I was born. So I hope that in this
article I will be able to describe to you the best way possible my home town
where I was born and where I lived when I was young, so that you would
understand me better when I am talking about my home town, my life story and
those events that were taking place in this town when I was young. So I hope
that I would be able to find some photos of my town on the Internet to show you
as much as I can.
Let me explain, just to make it easy to see
what this article is all about hereunder are some links, please point to the
link and then click on the links as prompted by your computer.
Genzano di Lucania, Youtube link, I say it
is an excellent video to start with.
For more information click on the links
below:
Let us hope that these links work for our
readers, anyhow there are other things that we want to show you here-under
starting with Genzano’s soccer field.
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Genzano’s soccer field
As we all know, in Italy one of the main
sports that everybody follows is what we call here soccer, so most town have
their soccer field, also Genzano di Lucania has its own soccer field, which the
inhabitant would be proud to show you; of course there are lot of other things
to see in Genzano, but let us start to show you some photos; as we all know Italian people love soccer, so, Genzano as far as I
remember has had a soccer team, and today they have a proper soccer field as
well. We need to say here that when I was a teenager there was not a real
soccer field yet, anyone that was interested in soccer had to wait after the
wheat harvest to get the soccer field going for that season. After the wheat
harvest in a field at the outskirt of the town they would flatten the ground
level enough to play for that season. It was okay then just the same, because
in Southern Italy in summer is usually very dry, so the soccer matches were on
just the same, but there were times when a thunder storm would come and ruin
the sporting event. I remember this because it happened to me when I was very
young, we all had to run and find shelter wherever we could at the nearest
houses in town, we got wet, but it was fun.
Old Genzano photos
Now, in this section let me show you an
aerial photos of the oldest part of Genzano town: This first photo here shows
you the oldest part of Genzano, which
is very ancient and there are a few stories how this town was started, so we may
have a couple of stories to tell how it came about; So, let me say this, in my
later articles (hubs) there will be a story or two written how this town was
started from people living nearby perhaps in caves or other make shift
dwellings; today there are a few theories that have been written recently from
and one of these writers in this link, Scrittori e poeti, this link is for those that can
read Italian as they are written in Italian, if the link works click
on the writer Ettore Lorito he has written a good and perhaps the real story
about Genzano origin and why this town was called Genzano, so my own
explanation here-under may or may not be correct, however it is just my point
of view.
Anyhow one has to look at the history of
the region to understand the way these old towns were built in the past, and
from there just imagine the possibilities and write about them if you think you
might be close to the truth. Now let me show you an aerial photos of the oldest
part of Genzano town: This first photo here shows you the oldest part of Genzano, which
is very ancient and there are a few stories how this town was started, so we
may have a couple of stories to tell how it came about; So, let me say this, in
my later hubs there will be a story or two written how this town was started
from people living nearby perhaps in caves or other make shift dwellings, which
is from what I know about the region and imagine that it could have happened.
Anyhow we were saying that one has to look
at the history of the region to understand the way that these old towns were
built in the past. See this link shown here; The
town I came from, there are a few things and a few photos showing what we mean.
About Genzano and about me
Perhaps it would have been better if I had
done this in the beginning of this article, but then I thought that I was
talking about the town and not about myself, so I have left this for later;
therefore, now let me introduce myself who I am: My real name is Francesco
Menchise born and grown in Genzano di Lucania and I migrated to Australia a
very long time ago, but I have never forgotten my original home town of
Genzano, therefore now as you can see I am writing my memories of my life and
therefore also my home town. Now, since I am writing this article to talk about
the town where I came from, I would appreciate very much if any of my
countrymen (paesani Genzanesi) that come across this article would like to
leave a comment, and also anyone with a family name Menchise I would appreciate
if they leave a comment, since there are reasons to believe that all people in
the world with their family name Menchise are originally from the town of Genzano
di Lucania; so, come on let us hear from you all, I will appreciate it very
much. I am sure that some of you who left Genzano old enough would remember
things that happen in Genzano like this feast, (festa della Madonna) See
photos.
In my life memories I will be writing
several things about Genzano whenever the occasion arises, I would also be
writing all those hear say and stories that went around town while I lived in
Genzano when I was young, perhaps what I am going to say here might very well
surprise even a modern Genzanese person since thing have changed a lot in the
last 50 years or so, therefore don’t be surprised if you learn something from
me about my original home town of Genzano di Lucania in these articles.
Other stuff
We who migrated from our native home towns,
we will always feel home sick sometimes, so we remember all those things that
we have left behind, therefore In Genzano there are many good things including
pretty girls, just look at this pretty face here:
As I have said above, I know I had to leave
all those things behind when I migrated to Australia, but anyhow I still keep
them in my mind as you can see.
Now that I have talked to you about my
native town of Genzano, let me tell you a bit more about myself and what I am going
to write in Hub Pages, you see I have already published a few articles, where I
am writing about my memories and other things as well; you are all invited to
check them out and here are the links, please click on the links below to view
and read our (articles) hubs:
An old
man story, Midway
introduction life story, Our
life observations, Wine
making the old ways, Genzano
Greek Chasm chapter, My farm
life experience, 2, Genzano
Greek chasm and Madonna story, My
first farm life experience
Genzano
Cavallina twilight, Genzano
is the town I came from, Genzano
di Lucania history, Strage
in Genzano di Lucania
These are some of the articles that I have
written and published in this domain called Hub Pages, but there is more that
you will find if you continue to follow my writings.
Genzano twin town
My dearer readers and Genzanesi folks I
have to say that while I was looking for Genzano di Lucania on the Internet, I
have found on the Internet also Genzano di Roma, which is a larger town and
seems to be important in art, so allow me to introduce you to this artistic
town including what I found on You tube videos, here is a link to see and enjoy
ballet with the several links that are attached to it.
Anyhow I
believe that I have said enough in this article, so see you in our next
article, Genzano the Lucania history.
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Genzano Cavallina twilights zone
The white rabbit is one if the ghosts of this fountain
The old town of Genzano was built on a high piece of land between two chasms, as it can be seen from this photo
Welcome to my hub of, personal twilight
stories, at Genzano fountain Cavallina
Wherever you go in the world where there
are ancient buildings, old folks always seem to come up with ghostly stories of
this place or that place being haunted, because some strange things seem to happen.
My native town of Genzano has also these ghostly stories, because old people
say that these things exist. So let us see if there are reasons to believe
them, so, let me tell you a story that has happened to me and to some my
friends and other things that seem strange enough to believe that these things
really exist, here is my story and what really happened.
My mother grandma and other elders of the town of
Genzano kept
telling us not to go alone to this fountain Cavallina when it was dark, but as
we all know young people sometimes do not believe their elders and want to find
out for themselves and so did I and my friends one night.
But before I tell you this ghostly story,
let me tell you why I would like to tell you that, dear readers in my last post
I have been talking about the town where I came from and its ancient fountain
called Cavallina, You see, because I was talking about Genzano town and this
fountain called Cavallina, I have remembered a particular ghostly event and
also a dream that I had about this fountain when I was young, there are also
other creepy happenings and ghostly stories about this fountain; I am saying
this because I would like to tell you some stories that I personally was
involved about this fountain, not only at the time when I was young but also
later on in my life. So I hope you would like to hear them; I know that somehow
they might be going to feel strange to some of you, but this was my personal
experience, so let me tell you.
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The Cavallina twilight zone
As I have said above, when I was young my
mother grandma and other elders of the town kept telling us not to go alone to
this fountain
Cavallina when it was dark, because some people had seen ghostly sights;
but if you had to go there not to go alone and go as early as possible after
dusk, so even when we were coming back from the fields from that side of town,
and we had to go past this fountain we had to be careful as soon as it was
dark, if you had to water your horse or donkey or whatever animals you had to
water them during the day or early before dusk. I have to say that there were also
some other unspeakable activities that went on near this fountain before dusk,
but about these activities of dumping human excrement I am doing to tell you
later on in another article, because now we are talking about ghostly things at
this fountain at night.
To cut a long story short I am going to
tell you what happened to me and some of my friends. As you all know young men
in their later teen are not easily scared and they start thinking that these
ghostly stories are not true at all, so, I and a few friends of mine were going
to pay a visit to this fountain Cavallina at night; so, one late evening we
went to see this fountain Cavallina and from above as we approached the
fountain there was nobody to be seen, so, we said to each other, you see there
is nobody here and there are no ghosts around, we really thought that we were
going to see something unusual at this fountain, so we were disappointed saying
to each other there are no ghosts to be seen.
So we kept going to the fountain when we
saw a white rabbit in a corner and soon we gave chase as we wanted to grab this
rabbit, not just for fun, but because we wanted to eat the rabbit as meat was
expensive those days. There were four of us giving chase to this white rabbit,
but the rabbit kept escaping us, but we kept running after it and the rabbit
was taking us very close to a ravine which had a drop of over ten meter and any
one that would fall down there would instantly end up dead.
Anyhow suddenly one of us said; what rabbit
that is not a rabbit? Suddenly we realised that we were not chasing a rabbit at
all, but we were chasing a ghost or an evil spirit that was trying to take us
over the ravine to kill us if we had followed it. It is said that ghost or evil
spirits lose their full power when people realise that they are a supernatural
apparition, so, in this case we were lucky when we realised that what we were
chasing was not a rabbit at all, it was an evil spirit; well at least this is
what we were made to believe then from the elders, when we told our story.
What I have written above was real life
happening, but what I am going to tell you next is only a dream, but you can
say that this dream that I am going to tell you belongs also to the twilight
zone, just like my life story about chasing the white rabbit belongs to the
twilight zone.
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Cavallina twilight dream
What I have written above was real life
happening, but what I am going to tell you next is only a dream, but you can
say that this dream that I am going to tell you belongs to the twilight zone
also, just like my story about chasing the white rabbit belongs to the twilight
zone.
So, let me tell you my dream, because what I
dreamed about is very strange; you see I was dreaming about an old person who
wanted to teach me something at this fountain Cavallina. I know that now you
are saying that this is a stupid reason just to tell you a dream and dreams are
only dreams and they cannot be classified as being real, but before you judge
me and my dream just read what I have to say, because it could be interesting
especially if you believe that dreams sometimes have some useful meanings, or
they can come from the afterlife world.
To understand this dream better I need to
explain that this old person might have been the spirit my great, great, great
grandma who
lived not far from this fountain, and who had used this fountain during all her
life, perhaps she had lived through one of this contagious disease that require
washing everything properly to avoid contamination and this is what she wanted
to teach me.
When I dreamed this dream I was in
Australia in my late forties, but in my dream I was only a boy about ten or
eleven years old, (I suppose that this difference in age in the dream wanted to
show me that the old lady was very ancient spirit compared to me), so, this
very old lady was standing beside me at this fountain Cavallina, strange as it
may seem I had taken some dishes and other eating utensil from the old house
where my grandma lived to wash at the fountain; the old lady was telling me to
wash everything under the first spout of the fountain and keep everything in
the first bay near this first spout, so that they would not be contaminated,
and so I did; but as you know dreams sometime are very strange and suddenly I
found that some of my dishes were in the second bay of the fountain, so I
started to worry about it, but the old lady said to me not to worry about it, I
was protesting to her saying that you said that the other bays are
contaminated, and she said don’t worry just for this time and you will soon
know why, when you wake up.
Then I woke up and realised that it was
only a dream, so I understood the old lady that I did not have to worry about
the dishes in the second bay of the fountain, because it was only a dream and
the dishes even though had been contaminated I was not going to use them
anyhow, just because they were only in my dreams, and they were thousands of
miles away, in another era and in another place. I believe that the old lady
was one of my forbear who popped up in my dreams to teach me a lesson about
food contamination or something like that, and she did.
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Since we have been talking in our last two
hubs about the town of Genzano di Lucania, which is indeed the town that I have
come from originally, when I came to Australia. I have been thinking that
perhaps it would be the right thing to do; if in my next hub I will be talking more
about, the town which I have come from. See you there.
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Where we come from
Genzano is the town I came from
This is the corso part of the modern part of Genzano di Lucania.
We all wonder sometimes where we come from and most of us would like to
know why and what is the reason for being here on earth; some of us have their
own beliefs or just go along with other people beliefs; but when you are not
living in your native town anymore, because you have left town and gone to live
somewhere else to earn a living, then the most likely question that people
would always ask would be; where you come from?
While we try to answer their question the best way we can we start
thinking about our own fife journey and indeed about the town that we have came
from; in my case I would answer I have come from Genzano di Lucania; so,
Genzano is the town I came from. Then we may start thinking that we might be
born with our own destiny, since we see that there were certain reasons why we
left our native town, at least some of us might believe we do have a destiny, just
because we would like to believe that it is so. You see for this reason I
believe that somehow my own destiny has played a part and has taken me away
from my native town. Some people may say that since you left your town for your
own personal reasons, you would forget about your native town altogether, and
you would not say a word about it since this town could not give you what you
wanted when you were young, so you left your native town.
Some people might think that you don’t like your native town, but it is
not like that at all, because wherever you are born and grow up it is going to
be your native town for the rest of your life. You see every one of us is proud
of its native town or country, if we were not proud of our heritage we would be
unworthy of ourselves, so, I hope that you my dear readers understand why
sometimes I would like to talk about Genzano my native home town. After all
Genzano di Lucania is really a good town that one could be proud of to come
from, so let us talk about Genzano di Lucania.
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Genzano is the town I came from
Dear readers, allow me to describe to you the town where I was born,
lived when I was young and later on I had to leave, so that I could come to
Australia: I would like to talk about this town so that you could understand
the ways that we used to live in this town, at the time when I was young; after
all we want also to compare the ways of living of those time with today’s ways
of living: we would like to do that in the hope that you may perceive and feel
my life story in the same way and depth as I have perceived and felt it, while
I was living my young life at that place and at that particular time. As I was
saying the town that I am talking about here is the town where I was born and
lived my youth before I came to Australia, its name is Genzano di Lucania.
Therefore let me go back to the time when I was young, so that I could
describe to you the town and their costumes, so that, you may be able to
understand the ways that these people have lived their lives for centuries; And
therefore the reason why they were living the way they were living at the time
when I was young. Now because I was born there I was caught in their own ways
of living, which left a lot to be desired for, if one compares it to the ways
that we live our lives in Australia nowadays, and also the rest of the western
world.
The town where I came from happens to be
situated in Southern Italy; its name is ‘Genzano’ but its full name is ‘Genzano
Di Lucania’, only to distinguish it from ‘Genzano di Roma’. But when we talk
about this town, we just talk about Genzano, and this causes a curious fact of
life here in Australia, because to most people living in Australia the name of
‘Genzano’ sounds very much like ‘Cinzano’ which is a famous wine brand. So they
start asking questions whether this town is the town where such a good wine
originated. But unfortunately ‘Genzano’ the town which I have come from has got
nothing to do with that famous wine brand. Although we had and still have some
good vineyards in the town territory, and they make good wines, and here I have
to add that also my family owned some vineyards at the time when I was young,
from which we used to make good wines too. The wine that our family made from
our vineyards was mainly for our own family use, but usually it was more than
our family could use, so we would sell the extra wine locally. I will tell you
more about this wine making in another hub, here is the link to check it out: Wine
making the old ways
But talking about wines and wine making, it makes me think of something
very unusual and scenic in this town, which people from outside town and not
familiar with this sort of set up would be amazed to see.
Now, if I were to say that the people of Genzano make their wines inside
cellars, which are large caves, dug in the walls of a chasm, it would certainly
leave too much to your imagination, and you may be forgiven to imagine that
there are cavemen too living in these caves. And indeed there were some sort of
cavemen in earlier times, and some of them used to live in these caves, but
they were not real cavemen, as they were just people who later on became the
first inhabitants of Genzano town, but I am sure that some of them used to live
in these caves in ancient times.
So now let me go back one more step in time; to those ancient times when
people used to live in the caves, before they built the town of Genzano: And
here my dear readers I would like to describe in general terms, if you don’t
mind me telling you the ancient nature of these caves, the terrain where they
stand, and perhaps take an educated guess why these caves were made there in
the first place, who made them and why they have been made there.
But first let me write a bit about the old towns of southern Italy, so
that the readers would have a better picture of what we are talking about
here.
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The old
towns of southern Italy
In the old continent of Europe as well as in Southern Italy, lots of
medieval towns were built on a rugged hill, or something similar for reason of
safety, as we all know that in ancient times and in the Middle Ages towns had
to be built in such positions, in order to make it hard for the enemy to get
into town, and easy for the inhabitants to defend the town from aggressions. Today
some of these towns are a sight to see like this photo that I have come across
on the Internet. This here under is one of the scenic towns of southern Italy,
it is a bit similar to my home town.
Very old town Matera
And
here I quote;
It
seems as though everyone in this region moved into caves, which came to be
known as i sassi (stones). You would think Sasso Caveoso and Sasso Barisano
(which begin at Piazza V. Veneto) were just typical Italian hilltowns until you
realize the "houses" are all windowless grottoes with damp walls and
earthen floors, where the family's animals slept side-by-side with the humans.
Far
from being uncivilized, these rock towns had intricate hydraulic systems that
kept water fresh and cool year round. Eventually the caves gained façades and
roofs, but the interiors remained virtually unchanged. Nearly 15,000 people
were still living in them in 1952, when the government finally declared them
unhealthy and outlawed their use. There are several places where you can visit
a typically furnished sasso: the most indicative is probably the one at Vico
Solitario 12, in Sasso Caveoso.
End
Of quote:
Dear
readers, we have taken the liberty of showing you another place in southern
Italy, so that in a way it shows you the way that the people of this region
have liver for a very long time, the reason for doing this is to show you that
Genzano the town I come from has a similar story.
The old Genzano town
Here we need to say that the history of the existence of Genzano is very
ancient, as there is some evidence that the town of Genzano already existed
when Christianity began in the Roman times. But in this story we are talking
about that very old and part of Genzano of the thirteenth century or there
about that is built on a strip of land which is situated between two chasms,
and these chasms are situated at the edge of a high plateau 588 meters above
sea level; and the modern Genzano is a continuation of the ancient part of this
town, which has kept steadily growing onto the high plateau itself up to the
present days.
In the beginning, because of the nature of the terrain of the high
plateau which was sandy at one end, allowed the rainwater to erode the soil
easily away, forming two chasms of considerable depth; which by memory I would
consider them to be 30 meter plus in depth. So Genzano that part of the ancient
town was built on the remains of the edge of an old high plateau, which the rainwater’s
had slowly dug and taken away the soil downstream, leaving a high strip of land
which was narrowing till the chasms met. And upon this triangular and narrow
piece of high land, the inhabitant of Genzano began to build their own town.
But before they built their own town, they must have been living
somewhere else, and they must have overgrown the place where they were living
in, and for this reason they started building their own town. Now, the only
place that they could have been living in was in the caves in the chasm, which
they themselves as the first and permanent inhabitants of this region had dug
in the walls of the chasms.
The walls of the chasms being Tuffaceous and very compact, and sandy in
nature with a few layers of sandstone at different levels, it had been possible
for the first inhabitant to dig in the walls of the chasms and make a cave. And
the caves although they are large they are reasonably safe from cave-ins; an
average cave could be 6 or 7 meters wide, and 6 or 7 meters high at the
entrance, and some twenty meters long becoming a bit smaller at the far end.
Now if you stop and think just for a moment, how hard it must have been
to dig in the walls of the chasms in order to make caves, and then also to
carry all the soil outside and away from the caves, even if they used to dump
the soil at the bottom of the chasms, and then wait for a good torrential rain
to take away the soil downstream, it would really be a mammoth of a job to dig
those caves.
So here I can easily say and demonstrate that life is and always will be
a struggle, as it was a struggle even then to dig those caves. And I believe
that perhaps life then was much harder than nowadays. Because to hand excavate
those caves must have been hard work indeed, and it must have taken them ages
and millions of men’s hours, as there are lots of caves in the chasms, in fact
it could be that there are one hundred caves in Genzano territory. Now because
all this happened a very long time ago, nobody these days seems to know who
they were the first inhabitant of the chasms, or where they came from, and how
many of these caves they made in the beginning.
Who could they be?
The first inhabitant of this region might have been just a group of
shepherds grazing their herds, and having found a sort of shelter in the chasm,
from the cold winds or rain in winter times, they stopped there and tried to
improve this natural shelter; so they started to dig these caves for themselves
and for their flocks. Or they could have been people that were fleeing away
from their enemies, and having found a sort of shelter in the shape of the
chasms, they stopped there and made it their home. Really they could be both,
and perhaps even more different groups of people.
Today one of the chasms is still called the Greek chasm from the elders
of Genzano, and this means that at least sometime in the past people from
Greece have lived there, or owned one of the chasms since they were living
there. About the Greek people there is still another story, which is somehow
different in nature from what I am trying to say at this moment, so I will have
to come back to it later on, when I am ready to tell you the story of the Greek
chasm and the Madonna story.
But now I would like to tell you, about when the inhabitant of the caves
started to build their own houses on this strip of land at the top of the
chasms; which later on would become the town of Genzano, and which was named
very likely after one of their leaders, or perhaps it is indeed an ancient
name, as I am going to tell you in my next hub. Therefore the time that Genzano
came into existence as a town for the first time nobody knows but in my next
hub that I am going to call, Genzano history, I am going to describe what I
believe happened. So, see you there.
Anyhow whatever we can say about our own native town, whether we like it
or not when somebody asks me, Where you come from? I will say, Genzano is the
town I came from.
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