After leaving the enchanting, charming, romantic town of Verona, we hopped back on a train and headed literally across the width of Italy over to the historic port city of Genova- home of Christopher Columbus (to clarify, called Genoa in any English guide book). Due to random stops in the middle of nowhere, we arrived in Milano in time to see our connection zipping out of the station. We bummed around the duldrums of Milano and caught the next train, therefore arriving in Genova much later than anticipated and just a tad too early for dinner. Once again though, the need for heat beat out our desire to be fashionably late for dinner and we happened upon a promising, hidden spot. Since of course, being "early", the restaurant was empty, our poor waiter had all the time in the world to figure out our bizarre questions and requests despite our very poor Italian. I ended up with the Genovese specialty- Pesto pasta- and the other girls got a chance to order the fresh seafood. Rachel even combined the two- despite the waiter confirming that "yes, yes that is a very weird request". Ha! Good thing we're so polite and cute and friendly, otherwise I think we wouldn't get away with nearly as much nonsense as we do!
Anyway, after a very satisfying dinner and dessert, we decided to start the trek up to the hostel. The man we purchased our map from had informed us that it was a 40 minute walk uphill, but due to youthful cockiness, we assumed we could easily make it in half the time up the "hill". As it turns out, he wasn't actually kidding or even slightly wrong, if anything he was downplaying it. Genova is built on a hill/cliff, and the youth hostel is at the very, very top. We ran into a woman and her daughter after about the first 10 minutes of straight stairs and verified that we were going the right way. She confirmed that yes, the hostel is up this staircase, but suggested we take the bus. We said we were walking and she chuckled and disappeared into her courtyard... Somehow we still didn't get it, though the chuckle should have been a clear sign. Almost another half hour later we took our last weary steps up to the hostel, only to notice there was in fact a bus stop not even 100 feet from the entrance. Good thing we are such happy campers and were able to appreciate the opportunity to work off at least some of dinner and dessert!
And what goes up, must come down. Unfortunately by that point, my legs were more than a little sore as we had by that point climbed every stair in Northern Italy (don't forget the colosseum, Roman ruins, and tower-of death in Verona), so I kind of hobbled downward as my muscles warmed back into submission.
The very helpful lady at the hostel and circled the historic tour of the town on our map for us and pointed out all the must-see sights. So we meandered and admired the very ornate, prosperous old-town of Genova. As well as being a current and historically prosperous port-town, back in the day Genova was known an "the bank of Italy", and at some point or another, most of the big families built their own palaces or developed their own streets/piazzas, etc. Check out my "I'm going to live here when I grow up face".
This palace looks out over the port- which back in the day before the modern factory-esque buildings- must have been a lovely view of the water.
The sense/mix of prosperity and propriety and history strongly reminded me of the historic port-towns of the east coast of the United States (Mystic, Connecticut in particular). Very grand and impressive on the whole, which I think was the point.
Bonus- wedding party!
More grandness- this time banks. In Italy, the grandest building, especially when clustered in one piazza, are typically banks.
And Christopher Columbus's humble little residence, which we did not pay to go inside.
Right behind Chris' house was one of the three medieval city gates. These three gates make a triangle around the historic core of the city- allowing Genova to claim the largest ancient city center in Italy. Pretty cool, the layers and layers of prosperity and centuries.
We stumbled across a fabulous flea-market in one of the piazzas where I picked up a few antique postcards and the other girls got jewelry. By this point we were all chilled to the point where we couldn't care less about any magnanimous building and simply wanted a warm place to sit and eat lunch.
Naturally it was at this point we came across the Duomo, and it is an unspoken rule that you must at least momentarily stop and admire every city's Duomo, even though the best one is clearly in Milano... Though prejudiced, I still have to admit this Duomo was pretty unique and whimsical. If you look closely, the columns on either side of the main door are spiraled!
Our fabulous luck with restaruants continued and we found a great trattoria that met everyone's needs/desires. I ended up with this creativly patriotic pizza- Genovese pesto- Lombardian cheese- and classic tomato sauce.
All in all, it was an amazing weekend that met and exceeded all my expectations. Ciao for now!
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