Traveling means a lot of things: by me it’s almost like tasting a new wine. You do not know until you try it! It’s not only discovering through my eyes, but also it’s a wider concept that involves people’s stories, like the one that Quinto Pagliarani told me.

Saturday morning! It’s raining in Cesenatico. Meeting point is at Hotel Internazionale. My friend Franco told me about a very weird old man who work in the mechanical sector but is an artist and has a special hobby: restoring old boats, not big one but little ones.

This is a story! Let’s meet him! Arriving in the place I only see a warehouse with a lot of cars. The daughter of Quinto welcomes me and I’m introduced to Quinto’s Kingdom.

Quinto Pagliarani

He stands at the top of a “Topo” a typical venetian little boat, used in the past two centuries to carry ware from the big boats to the harbor, since some of them were not able to enter. The sails where special ones and Quinto helps me to understand with a drawing.

Quinto at work!

Right now he’s working on the internal part. “I found this boat in the mud of the lateral channel of the harbor, one year ago!, tells me Quinto, “and it was better than I thought. Mud had maintained the wood that just needed to be cleaned up and then varnished again”.

The boat called Topo

Every single piece of wood is worked by hand and with a lot of patience, as in the old times. Quinto needed new wood to restore some parts, larch was the best (he respects the building tradition) and pine for the main tree; the black color is the original one! While the metal pieces are made by an expert blacksmith, by hand, of course!

All the place smell of new wood and caressing the boat, I immediately felt the desire to jump in and go to the sea.

The new main tree of the boat

Quinto loves his boats, he already restored one which is in the floating Museum, but this one will have another destiny: Menigo, so will be her name, will be dedicated to a friend dead in the past.

At the end of june, so Quinto is saying, the boat will be able to sail again! I will be there to see!

Disclaimer: this post was written during the Cesenatico Bella Vita Blog Tour, organised by the Cesenatico Bella Vita Hotel Union! Thanks to all the hotels who hosted the bloggers and offered such nice days!