Blogs from Genoa, Liguria, Italy, Europe - page 6

Geo: 44.4063, 8.93386September 28, 2009 ~ Genoa, ItalyToday was a good day in Genoa, Italy ~ pronounced Genova or Gen-eeww-wah, depending on who you talk too. Hubby & I were up at 7:15am and decided to have breakfast in the dining room where we sat with two older ladies from England that spoke and had mannerisms exactly as you would imagine two older ladies from England would speak and act ~ I was fascinated! They take this cruise every year and had several suggestions for our day tomorrow, in Villefrance, France. They were also a delight to be around and I loved them. The other tablemates were a talky couple from Boston that were also incredibly interesting and quite entertaining. I thought breakfast was a joy and could barely quit smiling or laughing whereas I believe ... read more

We made it to Genoa later at night, and were lucky to have our couch surfing host pick us up and take us out for incredible pasta. Seriously it was amazing with fresh noodles and to die for sauce, once again we were in heaven. Italy was definitely a lot about eating for us haha but WOW, i don't know how anyone manages to be thin in this country! After wards he took us to see a beautiful older part of town which used to be a little fishing village. It was very beautiful at night. We were up early and out walking around the city the next morning, we went to a bell tower and saw an amazing panoramic of the city. We were also able to go see the House that Christoper Columbus lived ... read more

HI THERE, for those with no Italian language skills like me, allora means "and then", and it is used by everyone hundreds of times a day in their speech....so after Sicily and 7 weeks of cycling in high temps of 40 odd and continued sunshine I ferried accross to Sardinia to more of the same but also strong winds coming down from France called The Mistral....what with heat, sunshine wind and mountains, Sardinia proved a difficult destination on the bike and also the 2 million tourists from ITALY that visit every august, after 2 weeks it proved too much so after 450 klms and 5 punctures in one day....ALLORA I ferried across to Genova to visit Stefano who I started the trip with May 2007 in Thailand. Unfortunatly his Dad is very ill only stayed 2 ... read more

I came to Genoa planning on only passing through for one night and then continuing on to Cinque Terre the next morning. I decided to slow down a bit and stay for another night and spent all yesterday wandering around Genoa getting a feel for the place. Getting here was a bit of a hassle however. The train from Venice to Milan was full so I had to stand the whole way (2.5 hours), and the train from Milan to Genoa was late. It also didn't take me all the way to the stop in Genoa I needed. So I had to switch trains after asking one conductor from my first train where I needed to be to get to Genova-Brignole. He said I needed a different train and that he didn't know which one to ... read more

We could sleep in this morning as our train to Genova doesn't leave until 11:44am. We had a leisurely (if not boring) breakfast and headed out into the rain to look for somewhere to buy lunch for the train ride. However, we didn't get far until we decided to get our bags down to the station and go looking from there. It's only 500m walk from our hotel to the station but not much fun in steady rain, holding an umbrella, trying (unsuccessfully) to keep our bags dry. Then Karina went and found some lunch and we waited for our train to arrive. Fantastic - a nice new, clean 6-seater cabin to ourselves. We stowed our bags and stretched out for what was a pretty comfortable 3 hour trip to Genova. In the end we had ... read more