I am Komi, born in the Soviet Union, living in Germany now, but my heart belongs to Italy.
I’ve visited almost all regions in Italy during the last 10 years and was super disappointed about almost artificial life nowadays in Venice, 90% of Italian restaurants not belonging to Italians in Florence, etc. Thanks to God you can almost always find Google Maps reviews and decide if it’s worth spending time and money in a certain place or not.
Luckily, before I was 99% disappointed, I found finally the very true Italy in Italy.
It’s a tiny place in Liguria, Mendatica, a village with less approximately 200 residents in the winter, but more alive in the summer.
The village is more than 2 000 years old and sometimes you can feel daily life the same style it was 200 years ago.
As many other Italian villages, it is extremely beautiful but very poor, it has no money to promote the place properly, people are not so close with the Internet, but it’s a treasure box where you can:
• Try homemade cheese and sausages at the local farm directly at producer at “Il Castagno” (it’s a business in fifths’ generation!);
• Get the difference between ravioli and raviori (can be during the Raviori Fest every July);
• Be involved in a real dinner at “Baci di Mattu”, after eating it you can not move for a couple of days and it costs here (including the unlimited wine) almost nothing;
• Visit the middle age church Santa Margherita where the famous Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl was writing his memoirs during a few months;
• Take a part of fest procession with locals;
• Hang out during the annual local cuisine festival “Cucina Bianca”.
During my first visit, there was no information about places to see/to visit or to buy/try food in Mendatica.
At the same time, I became an idea of how Google Maps and Local Guides can help to promote the place to make it more alive and to attract money to keep the life going. Even more inspiration I got during the Local Guides Meeting in Berlin in 2017 organized with informational support of Google.
I fell in love with Mendatica and during my next visits, I motivated owners of local businesses there to create places on Google Maps and to care about clients’ satisfaction, asking them to write a review; telling them it can help increase the number of tourists. Some places we created by local administration (responsible for tourism in the village as well) together with me.
Google Maps review and communication with Google Locals guides showed me how important is to provide information for passing by or looking for inspiration tourists. After Mendatica had created spots on Google Maps, I had written “Mendatica Guide” and published it online in 4 European languages to download for free. In my guide, I’ve mentioned in every part, that tourists can get more information on Google Maps and ask them to share if they found any extra information.
This was the most interesting project I’ve done with the help of Google Maps as a Local Guide, but I am not going to finish on it and my next project for the next city coming soon…