Sport & Recreation

In Urbino, sports and recreation means more than just hobbies and teams to root for, they’re stepping stones to creating a more tightly-knit community.

Tenuta Santi Giacomo e Filippo

Euros by Will Cooper

As the sun creeps back down to it’s horizon, relieved of its duty for the day, Daniela Peu, beloved employee of Bar Lamonaca, a fan-favorite corner store and bar, prepares the Piazza della Repubblica with tables, ash trays, and various monitors and projectors to entertain the daunting crowd that will soon follow. The stone laid streets of Urbino, which usually whisper the soft story of each step they inhabit, begin to rumble a loud chant as more and more people flood the piazza. On this day, the only thing strong enough to match the typical quiet, artistic culture that Urbino exemplifies, is a fiery passion fueled by the love of conflict, competition, and unity under a flag- it’s time to watch the European Football Championships in the streets of Italy.

Photos by Gray Gilliam

Interview with Daniela by Will Cooper

Photos by Gray Gilliam

Daniela is well known, and loved amongst the local Urbino community, and she takes pride in how she enables people to come together to watch the sports they love. While there are many words that can be used to describe her, the most potent that come to mind are joyous, welcoming, and wildly efficient. Her only attribute that outshines how effectively she serves each customer she encounters is the bright smile she has while doing so. Daniela was kind enough to let us ask her a few questions about her love for the people, culture, and sports that surround her.

“[The piazza seating setup] attracts a lot of people, and there is a large sense of community created because of it”. [Translated]

Daniela emphasized the importance of the community to her, and how she feels it continues to grow, explaining, “when lots of people come, lots of people get to talk to each other and they become good friends.” [Translated]

And while creating a greater community is what’s important to Daniela, she recognizes that soccer is the greatest enabler of any spectacle she can present, saying, “When there’s a soccer match, more people come, but if it’s another sport less people come here”.[Translated]

Daniela elaborated on some of the challenges she faces in trying to present more sports and soccer matches, “Only [show] for the Euro matches, because if I want to put another match on then I have to pay a tax… if there could be a big screen for everyone to watch games on, that would probably work out, but we have to pay taxes so it doesn’t work for us”.[Translated]

In discussion about her favorite teams to root for, Daniela mentioned that she was neutral, and didn’t necessarily mind which team came out on top of any of the games, which seemed to be a common theme for most of the interviews we conducted.

Interview with Charles by Will Cooper

Photos by Gray Gilliam

We were lucky enough to sit down with soccer superfan from Cornwall, England, Charles Whitten, and ask him about what soccer means to him and why he thinks it’s important.

“It’s not necessarily that soccer is, it’s the competition between nations as opposed to war- I prefer this type of competition… I get excited when I see nations competing in a sportive way as opposed to a war or an aggressive way… the idea of the competition without the violence”.

“To tell you the truth, at the end of the day, win or lose, it [which teams win wins] doesn’t matter… The idea of following an idea, it’s just being part of a bigger occasion”.

Charles then shared his thoughts about how the outside seating setup helps him get to know his community, however he attributed this enablement to more than just what Urbino offers, “You have to look at the civilization of Italy, or Europe in general, because it has a warmer climate in the summertime, people tend to congregate outside… if you go to, like, cold countries like Iceland, or Greenland, or Canada… it doesn’t work”.

If there’s anything to learn about the people in Urbino, it’s that their relationships with their community matter. At the end of the day, everyone has their own passion, and even enjoy the heat of competition, but the competition never matters enough to overthrow the love for fellow man that reigns over the city.

Birders Gorge

Take a moment and think about how much we really know about the world in which we live. Many people take the beauties of nature around them for granted as they grow more comfortable with the continuously evolving lifestyle they lead, ultimately letting the health of the environment fall to the wayside. The members of the Birders organization, created and led by avian specialist and published author Maurizio Saltarelli, educate people on the wonders that lay within the Furlo Pass Riserva Naturale Statale Gola del Furlo, and largely advocate for the conservation of our environment. We were surprised to find that their passion for the environment holds meaning that reaches beyond the great walls of the Gorge, and into the hearts of those who are willing to listen.

Photos by Gray Gilliam

Candigliano River

The Candigliano river flows through this Gorge, connecting to the Metauro river, eventually flowing into the Adriatic sea.

Cascata Delle Rondini (Swallow Waterfall)

Cascata delle Rondini, or Swallow Waterfall, is home to a few of the many animals that inhabit the area. This formation is dry most of the time, but turns into a waterfall when it rains.

Another photo of the Cascata Delle Rondini (Swallow Waterfall)

These mountainous rocks are home to every animal imaginable, from small crab spiders that can change color based on the branch they sit on, to peregrine falcons that eat their prey upon a perch above the road, leaving nothing but a “flurry of feathers” to descend down onto travelers.

Animals are not the only thing this Gorge boasts, but also various kinds of Andemic plants, which are plants that grow from rocks. Many of these beautiful plants that we saw, however, were not nearly as grown as they have been in years past, because climate change has caused a lack of moisture in the rocks, restricting these beauties from growing.

Interview with Maurizio by Will Cooper

Photos by Gray Gilliam

In addition to our insightful interview with Maurizio Saltarelli, we talked to Birders members Max Martinelli, Roberto Moratti, and Domenico Rossi (aka Mimmo) about what it means to them to be a part of this organization and spread information about what they love. Because he was the only one of the group to speak fluent english, Roberto spearheaded the discussion, saying, “it has a lot to do with our love for nature. So we’ve always been observing and looking for nature. And now we have the chance of bringing this to people who don’t know about nature”.

“You respect what you love. And people don’t know about nature, they don’t respect it, sometimes not out of just spite [but] if we can, like fill in the gaps and some people who don’t know about nature, there is a chance that they might actually respect it more and be more interested in when they go around because nature is all over us. We live in a documentary”.

Roberto then discussed how one might be able to go from a state of ignorance to growing a passion for nature conservation, as well as opened the floor to the others for their opinions, “You know, my stories ever since I can remember I was just in awe of everything that was moving, I was observing and wondering”.

Roberto translated on behalf of his peers, starting with Max, “Since he was a kid, he was born and raised, like in the mountain close to here, in a small town, close to a mountain. He’s always been in the green. He’s always been in nature, so what he’s ever done is like mountain bikes and free climbing. And then photography came and so he loves to be able to …tell the tale of nature through photography”

While each of the interviewees fell in love with the organization and its principles mainly because of their passion, Domenico holds more of a blend between love and professionalism, “So he was studying, like for agriculture- so forestry. So he was into that. And so love just for nature. Of course, he went there because he really enjoyed nature already. He went there he started studying it got even more passionate. And he added that with photography. And so basically he’s in the same area where we are, basically telling people about nature through photography and bringing info to others to just make nature known”.

As someone who could certainly be considered as ignorant to the importance of nature around me, it was astonishing to see how selfless of a home these passions were grown from, and it was truly eye-opening to learn of how the true importance in the work these men do is not to promote their own agendas, but rather educate the general public for their benefit. In a series of closing statements, the Birders included some values they think are most important for any reader to acknowledge, the first of which being that proper education of the younger generations is vital to the success of their efforts, “Yeah, education is going to be more and more present with us in the future. Also he [Martinelli] thinks this is going to be our base, you know, for many reasons that we already spoke about. And and what you saw the little piece of paper, it’s like a little napkin or something on the ground and lots of people that have trash, litter and trash. Lots of people speak, just only talk about it in conservation and all that. But to all the facts, they don’t really do anything about it, everybody, it’s somebody else who is left to fix that. You can’t just throw trash and litter anywhere. So our educating, and especially our being more into with with kids. So young generations are the future. Like many today, they are the last we lost them ready. So we can only try and make the best, you know, try and avoid the damage will limit the damage”.

In addition to this point, they wanted to expand on the aforementioned importance of accountability within our communities to keep every landscape, from secluded roadsides to mezmorizing gorges, clean, “He’s [Mimmo] saying that if you if you see trash, you don’t pick it up, You’re just as bad as the one who threw it away in the first place. So not just to try to also teach people and for other people to make sure you’re not indifferent to what is going on. You see it you don’t appreciate it. You say oh, that’s horrible. But you don’t do anything about it. You’re just as bad as people who are perpetrating like damaged nature”.

Perhaps the most potent point they made, however, was that there is a connection between how we treat nature, and how we treat each other as human beings. In a previous quote, the importance of respecting nature as a virtue of loving it was mentioned, and this theme resurfaced in a beautiful final statement from the three men, explaining, “respecting nature is a first step to then respect each other. So let’s, you know, the world needs a little bit more love”.