Genoa

We are somewhere north of Genoa today on a train speeding north to the border with France. Yesterday's storm has cleared. We are watching the Italian Riviera shoreline on the left, and suburbs, mountains, palm trees and breaking up clouds, on the right. We are having focaccia that we bought in Genoa this morning, and some of the wine we bought from Giovanni back in Sicily, in water bottles....

Genoa was a total mystery to us as we had no guidebook. Last night we got off our ferry, at the cruise ship port, that's how big the thing was, and we were feeling dazed and confused, thinking we would have to find a taxi but we learned that we could get to the heart of Genoa by the subway, and then back again to our train station in the morning. From the subway costing a euro fifty or less than $2, we emerged in the grand Piazza Ferrari where the grand avenue, 20 September, sweeps down five dramatic blocks to the grand city gate archway. The buildings on each side of this wide avenue are four or five stories with baroque facades and the bottom story of each one is an ornate colonnade with grand mosaic design floors, along one side is the street and the other side is grand shop windows and grand hotels like the savoie. Our own 70 euro hotel, the Hotel Soana, is in its own ornate office building, up on the fifth floor and after you are buzzed in to the building you get up there in a very old cage type elevator with a little leather seat that says 'maximum 2 passengers'. The hotel has 12 small high ceilinged rooms with ornate moldings, very nice.

We had no idea that Genoa had such a nice and manageable center. In addition to the grand avenue part, there are many older parts with renaissance churches and palazzios overshadowing very narrow streets with many cafes, bakeries snd no visible tourists. There are several of the beautiful churches that in their facades alternate black and white horizontal stripes of stone as you might see in Florence. The food is very tasty, the region of Liguria is the home of pesto, and last night we had a swordfish carpaccio and totally delicious antipasti including focaccia like treats and puffy things you dipped in a creamy garlicky seafood concoction. This morning we enjoyed a lot of foamy cappuccinos here called "cappuccios" each costing a euro or $1.30 us and so much so absolutely much better than anything Starbucks ever concocted. In the U.S. a "cappuccino" is mostly flat warm milk but in Italy it's pure light yet creamy foam. So nice to eat with a dark chocolate filled flaky pastry. I have thought of titling this blog entry "Fitter and Fatter" because I can now zoom up f lights of stairs but my tummy is definitely plumper and rounder. Darn.

A few more blocks down the XX Settembre avenue is the old market building which is still functional. All sorts of tasty produce including spiny artichokes, huge purple and green asparagus, radicchio, etc is there as well as delis selling pastas, truffle concoctions, and bakeries and butchers and fishmongers.