Farnsniente

A church with stores on the first floor.

Our last day in Italy (for now)

—

in
📍 Genoa, Italy

Photos

Trip index

Summary

Turns out Genoa is super hilly. We climbed up many, many stairs to Castello d’Albertis with great views of the port. Walked thru the Orto Botanico dell’Universita di Genova (botanical garden) which was in dire need of some attention from their gardeners. Trekked back downhill for lunch then discovered the elevator that would take us back up the hill to the Palazzo Ducale. Ran for the bus to take us even further up only to realize it was the “going down” bus, At that point, Karen, Ron and Nancy opted for some downtime in our rooms while Scott took off for a recorded walking tour. Drinks at the fancy hotel next door and dinner at our hotel.

Details

Today is planned to be a quiet day, without a lot of activities planned. We’ll do some walking and see where the spirit moves us. We’ve had some pretty sunny days with blue skies. This won’t be one of those, but hopefully not a rainy day, either. Just a tad gray. The temperature’s OK, not cold but not hot. 

We again have our big, varied breakfast down stairs. I’m getting used to having focaccia with green olives with my coffee. Soon  the four of us are out walking and are headed up to a castle, the Castello d’Albertis. 

The GPS tells us where to go and that appears to be up. Up and up. I guess that “at the top of the hill” with good views and good defensibility is the way to go. We find ourselves again going on the stairs from the other night, but this time we discover that they just keep going. We pass youths and older men and a really old woman. All seem to be undaunted by the number of steps. 

The castle does, indeed, have a good view of the harbor. It also has lots of pretty flowering plants. It’s a nice change from the stone, glass, and asphalt of the flats of the city. We try to stop in for a coffee (our elevenses) but apparently it’s the wrong time of year/week/day and the castle’s cafe is closed. Onward to coffee. 

We head next to the Orto Botanico di Genova (the Botanical Garden of the city). It’s not easy to find and not totally worth it. The write up talks about a whole lot of green houses and other amenities, which maybe it has, but funding to keep all that open and in tip-top shape they obviously don’t have. The weeds are having a field day, but still we’re able to pick out a bunch of plants we know and much of the flowering plants are in good bloom. 

Back down on the flats we head to an Italian Trattoria that’s well reviewed. From the owner/workers we see we can tell this place is well run by hard working Asian immigrants. We order five things to share. They quickly arrive and look great, but we need plates. “No, no plates… use these… OK, but I only bring two.” We make it work and the food is really good. We leave not a scrap. 

As we eat we hear some wailing outside. Muslim call to prayer? Yep, we get back outside after we’re done and many dozen men are on their knees, praying in our direction (undoubtedly towards Mecca). 

Our next target is the Palazzo Ducale, and again it’s way up, but thankfully there’s an elevator. We don’t quite understand how this can work, but we’re game. We buy our tickets and get into the glass-lined car with others when it arrives. 

From what we can see, the “elevator” appears to just be a single car electric train car that zips us slightly up hill. Towards the end of the ride the car slows and then goes around a tight corner, into a little cubby. We’re still for a moment and then WHOOSH, we’re lifted upwards quite a distance. I believe I’ve read about this kind of elevator in the Roald Dahl children’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. 

Back outside we again consult the GPS on our iPhones as to how to continue our travels to the Palazzo Ducale. As is so often the case there are multiple options, both involving busses, either the #35 or #36 bus. We bought (what we think) are bus tickets at the end of the elevator (they weren’t) and I see a #36 bus show up just then. Quick! Let’s jump aboard, and we do. 

Quickly it becomes apparent this is the #36 bus in the wrong direction. Smooth move, Scott! Next stop? Our hotel. We cry uncle and decide to go back to the room to chill. But before that, since we’re at the Central Train Station anyway we commit ourselves to finding the departure point for our bus tomorrow to France. 

After some chilling I opt to do a solo in-town walk-about. We have a Smart Phone app that we like, called VoiceMap that uses GPS to guide you and gives audio descriptions of what you’re looking at. Feel free to use my Tour Code (tpewwi) to get one free tour. It was wonderful and I learned a lot (if only temporarily for some of it). 

I learn about a beautiful, ancient building that they plastered over (much of it) back in the day because they wanted it to look more modern (groan). And I get to see a church with stores all around it on “the first floor”. This was done so they could afford to build the church, way back in the day. And I learned that these streets, with so many foreigners hawking their wares, have been like this for 100s of years. Port cities engaging in trade from far off places attract such things. 

The tour ends up in big piazza, currently with an exhibit by the city police force showing off all of their toys: cop cars, motorcycles, wave runners, CSI kits, drones. Kids get to look inside the vehicles and sit on the motorcycles. Recruitment at its best. 

We end up having dinner at the Trattoria “next door”. It’s funny because it’s the same place we’ve been having breakfast every day. In the morning it’s closed to the public but open to the hotel. At lunch and at night it closes itself off from the hotel and converts to a public restaurant. Most importantly it’s really good. 

We walk off our dinner and buy some Genovese Pesto to take with us to France. We’re headed there tomorrow!

Photos

[Gentle reader, as before, please be aware that these pictures are (mostly? all?) in reverse chronological order, that is, not matching the flow of the text above. This isn’t as I would wish, but I haven’t figured out how to switch them around without oodles of effort. Please to excuse.]

Aperitivi (cocktails) before dinner at the Savoy Hotel next door. Negroni sbagliato, gin and and tonic, and complementary snacks. We’ll miss this custom, even if our waistlines won’t.
Each time we ride the elevator, to our rooms on the 4th and 5th floor (by US counting method) we see the phone one would use if trapped. (Does that ever happen? 😮 )
At the end of my one man walking tour the local Polizia were having a big fair (read ‘recruiting event’), showing off all of the fun toys with which they get to play.
If someone had told me I’d be seeing a painting of a circumcision, I think I’d have been a bit skeptical, but hey, apparently stuff happens.
The Church of Jesus Christ. (Um, aren’t they all?)
Among other ways, adding religious decorations above the street sign reportedly helps get you in the good graces of the big guy. They’re impressive, so why not.
Lots of basil plants in town. Most look pretty and healthy.
Here it seems you can’t turn a corner without bumping into another church. Each has a story (or three).
The story behind this ancient church is that they wanted to build one here but didn’t have the funds. Someone suggested they first build a level with retail establishments all around and the proceeds from that would enable the building of the church. It’s an olde school Vertical Mixed Use building.
This imposing structure features gold statues of famous city residents including Christopher Columbus and fancy pillars and massive stones, but they’re all just painted onto a flat, stucco surface. What did the building originally look like? You can see a little of it remaining on the left, but the city fathers thought that looked old and so plastered it over to make it look modern and impressive. Whaaa!
This boat was used in Roman Polanski’s box office bomb “The Pirate” or some such movie.
Not a clue, just walked by it.
So you live here, back in the day, and regularly pirates come by and raid and plunder your belongings. The locals experience that a few times and start to rebuild the houses really close together, so that you can get maybe one or two pirates a time coming through. Easier to take out. Now? We just have a lot of really narrow streets.
A magic “elevator”. At first it flys up the ramp, horizontally, for quite a distance before making a sharp turn and then whooshing way up to the surface. I’ve never ridden in such a conveyance! I did read about something like this in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Coming out from lunch we found that the Muslim call to prayer had been answered by a big group of the faithful. We figure out that Mecca must be behind us.
Our hotel is not far from the law school and thus the law library. But why use such a short, efficient name when you can use the longer, and funner to say, Biblioteca di Giurisprudenza?
A very tasty Italian shared lunch. But only “two plates for you!”
Not only are they impressive drivers but some are apparently impressive parkers.
Wisteria on the Castello D’Albertis.