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...With a Friend Waving Goodbye to Italy
I was told the city was dirty and anomalous, lacking the breathtaking, characteristic piazzas and palazzi characteristic of most Italian cities. No famous names, but that of Cristofero Colombo, who lived in Genova many of his young years. Few tourists, no famed artists. But other sources have named it the next European capital, famed for its port life and shipping industry.
So we give Genvoa a go and arrive in time to find a hotel and take a short walk before it begins raining.
First impression is already impressionable.
Genova lives on hill, crawling from coastline up and over the immediate ascension, growing long and strong and keeping itself hugged close to its watery edges. Honest and humble, hard working and depressed, aging and serene, this city boasts the irony of it’s contrasts…from the beauty of it’s architecture in the center and upon the hills, to the slum-like streets hidden under structures that once were used for construction and seem to hold up the very buildings themselves.
Walking down streets, the vision ahead is layer upon layer of building upon building with winding streets that cross and curve and make this
city a maze of intricate passageways, MC Escher-like- carved into hillsides, and straight through the very hill itself, over one highway, and under another and your destination is always above or beside or below you on another road visible but seemingly unattainable.
And there are parks, and churches that glow a golden ochre in the setting sun, and the trees are blooming and green. One area is characterized by Romanesque arches and ancient aquaducts, dark brown stone facades of buildings with highly decorated faces-lions, mermen, graces, eagles. The center has its palazzi, the opera house, several museums, the Duomo and a huge 19th century fountain. Tiny streets lead to restaurants and bars. There is a great deal of life here.
The streets near the station are dirty and dark, and unfortunately it seems that here live the immigrants-Cubans, Tunisians, Moroccans, Senegalese. Near the port we notice there are many buildings painted to imitate classic architecture instead of real architectures itself. Boldly colored columns and grandly gesturing painted sculptures in yellows, reds and blues fill the outer walls like murals on monstrous-sized cardboard. The streets near the port are filled with fruit markets and cheap vendors. The Aquarium attracts
hundreds, and the rest of the harbor seems filled with gigantic cruise ships and thousands of little boats docked and tied to the salt-water aged posts. The food is not exceptional. The focaccia disappointing. There is not a lot of seafood here, as I thought there might be, as the port is used mainly for importing and exporting, instead of fishing and tourist beaches.
The dirty streets and 2 hours of downpour that began several hours after our arrival didn’t drown spirits, as other miracles were in the making.
Wandering around the harbor for several minutes, my friend asked to walk by the Senegalese streets vendors more than once to breath in the memories of Africa and to revel, if not for only a few seconds, in the very scent that she, having lived among and with and for this gentle people, would be able to perceive.
And here Genova, in all its most illogical ways, had already begun its embrace of its two newest visitors. Upon the docks, an old friend from Senegal spots Kathryn. They had not seen each other since their stay in Africa a year ago. The two talk for hours as
we walk uphill and the downpour began. Talking and catching up on time, Kathryn is alive and amazed. Unfortunately, the evening began to arrive and the old friends parted. Coincidences too precise to be coincidences.
We later find our paths lit delicately and unobtrusively in the dark streets of Genova, the buildings high and the light generally dull. Small candles fluttering in the cool breezes traveling the alleys of a port city. We follow the flames, giddy like children. We eat simply and then eventually find ourselves in a green-lit restaurant, behind a green glass partition, served golden plates and a warm graciousness. We eat dessert like queens-mint and chocolate Bavarian crème one, warm cream filled crepe with peaches and berries for the other.
Tonight is a special night, and in addition we learn that the palaces and museums are open late and free. This one very night that we had never even known. Genova has indeed extended it’s blistered hand unassumingly but attentively our way.
With the night of the candles, leading our way to Palazzo Rosso and Palazzo Biancho, where we ushered into the grand halls and quickly browsed paintings, among which were Reni, Guercino
and Van Dyck. Little do we know what other treasures were hidden...but with so little time in our hands we did what we could!
The next day we took the city in our grasp and wandered one end to the other, sometimes daring to climb the steep stairs leading to various new levels of the city, providing new views, out to sea, and down to the streets below, straight up the streets above. Literally, the vertical city. In one day, and very few glimpses of the map, Kathryn already knows the landmarks and major streets, and I follow. Arco dei Caduti, Piazza Corvetto, Monumento Mazzini, Ponte Monumentale, Piazza Dante. We near our end settling on the steps of the Duomo, San Lorenzo, with gelati. Inside are hundreds watching the inductment of 3 priests. I am scolded as I try to take a token pictures-which was really less about the high priest in the white pointed hat and red cloak, than the medieval relief sculptures lining the side nave.
We have not stopped talking for most of the trip, whether about food or the right street, what our plans ahead are and are fears about where we are at
at the very present, the monument on the left and our differing views on Italian culture and gelato flavors.
Genova, in it’s simplicity and enduring spirit, has crumbling streets winding through crumbling buildings still lived in and within, resembling the smells and character of the poorest sections of Manhattan. Genova, honest of its contrary parts, evidently a mixture of decay and hard-wearing beauty.
I say good bye to a friend with whom I have reconnected in a strange place at a strange point in our lives. We share a place and a time not perfect.
I send her off, Genova being our last parting point, with full confidence in her evident vivacity and outstanding endurance. In the most unassuming of cities, we found gifts that we will both keep within our hearts wherever the streets we follow, on the map or not, may creep.
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valya
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thanks...you liked my city... it is always forgotten by tourists.. it has plenty of treasures..but hidden... we are not so "open" to foreign people...but once in genoava you discover all its treasures, paintings, palaces... ah...we have a lot of fish food....where didn't u find it??? it's everywhere!! maybe wrong restaurant... also for focaccia...maybe you had a bad experience because you were in a bad place...