On the road in Bellisseria in Second Life

Since it opened, Bellisseria, the new Linden Homes continent, has started to develop into a thriving community of those not only interested in having a home there, but also in developing a community spirit. To assist with this, the Lab incorporated a number of social areas throughout the continent, such as the pool area in Gaim, which serves both the coastal houses and house boats in the area, and – most recently, it terms of this article – the Squishy Pickle bar in the houseboat regions added in May 2019.

However, residents have also added their own, creating the first public rez zones in the continent on their own properties and their own social spaces, such a pubs. where people can gather. As such, I thought I’d take a little road trip around the continent, using some of these locations as way points.

My starting point was the pool area at Gaim, selected simply because it is the closest public social area to my houseboat. From here, I took the coastal road north, heading up to Normandale, a region with several public spaces within walking distance of the local houses, including a picnic area looking out towards the Coral Waters airstrip off the coast. From here, and before reaching New Bigby, with its extensive west-facing beach, I turned inland.

The route led me past one of numerous show homes scattered across the continent. Like many such house, this one, by Apple Fall is open for people to come in and get ideas for interior décor for their homes. Sadly I couldn’t stop as I’d risk seeing my car go poof, so I continued east, passing through Greenbow, then taking a short run through the still-to-be-named SSPE228 with a brief turn north into Rockham and then east once more to Fourze.

This took me past a riverside seating area before turning north along the coast, past one of the many little boathouses that are open to the public (as which I thought might be earmarks to become rezzing zones at some point); this one, pictured in the banner of this articles, looks out over one of the lighthouses that do have rezzing areas. Continuing north took me through Kiva and on to Maple Cross, with its hilltop garden area (which perhaps could use a little smoothing in some of the terraforming).

One of my primary destinations for this trip was Buitenwijk, and the Red Lion pub. Now, I’ll be honest, whenever I hear or read the words traditional English pub, I tend to shiver, as so often the words don’t tend to measure up to what we in the UK might regard as a “pub”. However, the Red Lion’s owner, Matty (Matty Luminos), is also from the UK, and the Red Lion does indeed offer the look and feel of a modern boutique-style pub, where a selection of beers, ales, wines and more might be pleasantly imbibed either indoors or out in the garden. With its riverside location.

While the Red Lion offers open rezzing, calling-up a car in the garden would be rude, so instead, I resumed my travels via my trusty Roadrunner scooter, by Ape Piaggio (see A Second Life Roadrunner for more). Riding this, I again headed north, passing the impressive arc of the Capitol Springs Bridge, before continuing on through the houses to the rez point at what is currently called SPPE133. At this point, I cheekily swapped my scooter for my MD900 helo (which I quickly shoved onto the grass alongside the road after sitting in it!), and took to the skies for a quick flight back to my houseboat.

I’ve seen Bellisseria being referred to by some bloggers as a “ghetto”. I’m not sure where that perception comes from – outside of perhaps not having visited. Yes, the styles of homes are (for the present) somewhat limited (four variations of house and four variations of houseboat). But as any trip along the roads or waterways of Bellisseria or flights across the continent demonstrate, there is already sufficient variety of house style, coupled with people’s approaches to decorating their homes and gardens – including the various “extension” and “party packs” for interior / exterior supplements – to make Bellisseria a diverse and pleasant environment, entirely undeserving of the epithet.

For my part, I’m becoming increasingly persuaded by the attractions of Bellisseria and the growing community spirit within it – hence why I’ll be writing for The Bellisserian, the continent’s new resident-run newspaper.  I plan to spend more time travelling through Bellisseria and, from time-to-time writing about places of interest within the continent like the Red Lion and the various Linden / Mole defined public spaces. In this, I would perhaps like the Lab to make the land-based rez points more obvious – it’s great having Yasmin’s HUD (see Finding rez zones in Bellisseria – Yasmin’s free HUD for more) – but having the rez points marked by a sign like those found on other mainland continents with road routes, would be handy – and could be done at the humble cost of 1 LI apiece.

In the meantime, my thanks to Gingir Ghoststar for her note card of points of interest and to the folks of the Bellisseria Citizen’s Group for pointing out additional public places they’ve discovered.