Day 11 - Genoa Day 2

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We got a fairly early start and took the bus down to the center of Genoa. We still had most of the day on our 24 hour/4 people transit ticket. I had thought of going on a quaint train ride from Genoa into the countryside, but we decided instead to check out the museums downtown. We bought a pass for about 8 Euros each that was good for 3 of the main museums, Palazzo Rosso. Palazzo Bianco, and Palazzo Turtis. We wanted to eat lunch first, and we needed to straighten out our train tickets to Verona and Venice tomorrow, so we first went to the Palazzo Principe train station. After checking with customer service on available trains and connections, we decided to be brave and try to use the ticket vending machines. It took a bit of figuring out, but we ended up with all the tickets. We paid a brief visit to a free exhibit in the Palazzo Real of Napolean's visit to Genoa in 1859, then off to lunch. We ended up eating in a small bar near the harbor. Manoli had another salad, Alexis had another pizza, and I had a mixed plate with a breaded pork cutlet, pasta with tomato sauce and broiled potatoes. All were pretty good and inexpensive. My plate was the most expensive at 8.50 Euros, and the first time I'd seen a combo plate that cheap. We stolled back up to Via Garibaldi and visited all three museums. Mostly they contained very old religious paintings from the 15th and 16th centuries. Some were quite impressive. Near the end of the tour, in Palazzo Turtis, they had an awesome display of old coins, china, and measuring devices. By this time it was like 5pm, so we went to check out the "lift" that we could take down very near to the train station from only partway down from the hostel, possibly saving us some time and hassle on the bus. After looking at it, Manoli decided she didn't want to go, but I had to try it out. Since we had an "all transit" pass, it was a free trip up and back down for me. The transit passes are good for all busses, metros (I think there is only one line), funiculars, lifts, and even a boat trip in the harbor. The ride was interesting and pretty unique, since ou ride 250 meters in on rails, then hook up and ascend like an elevator, another 50 meters. I'm not sure yet if we'll try it tomorrow or not. Either we'll take bus #40 downtown to bus #5, then the train station, or bus #40 to a stop down the hill a ways, then the lift down near the station. After my little jaunt, we grabbed the bus back to the hostel and made an early night of it, having dinner from the hostel's vending machines, which have a pretty good selection of pizzas, sandwiches, and even microwaveable pastas. Well, tomorrow we take our last trip in Italy, going to Venice for a few days, with a brief stop in Verona to see where the story of Romeo and Juliet supposedly took place for real. You can tour the house where Juliet's family lived. This is the same place they showed in the recent move "Letters for Juliet."

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