Genoa

The daycare that shares the building with the hostel has let out. Sixty kids attempt to burn off energy of being cooped up for 8 hours as parents sit, talk, and smoke while weary travelers wander in after a long day of transit or one too many museum. I don't even know where to begin to describe Genoa. The days have blurred and I've had little time to write and record my thoughts. We have seen the sights! I don't know if my dogs will ever stop hurting. And we have been no further than the route of bus #40 and the old city!! 

Five museums over the past 2 days: Galleria Nazioale di Palazzo Spinola, Museo Navale, Palazzo Andrea Doria, and Palazzo del Principle, and Castello D'Alberis. Little is behind glass and guards keep a close eye but I don't think museum patrons here would think about touching or allowing kids to climb on things. Two ways into town and both involve the #40 bus that navigates the narrow switchbacks--the driver anticipating his ability to pass cars and trucks a block away. This drive can either nauseatingly take you all the way down to town, disembarking at any number of spectacular fountains or for half a nausea you can get off half way down, then entering a very nondescript wooden door, take an elevator  down thru solid rock 263 meters and then horizontal on tracks another 2300 meters to be expelled just yards from the main train station. The neighborhood; a little seedy with ongoing restoration, a university and a strong Sudanese population; is within walking distance of old historic downtown Genoa: Via Garibaldi lined with the mansions of 16th century Genoese merchants and aristocrats complete with peeling frescos from vaulted ceilings, now housing banks and real estate brokers; a maze of shoulder width alleys connecting small squares in front of aged churches with crumbling walls yet inside stunning carved wood, stone and gold proclaiming the power and status of the Christian god; gastronomic oasis of ristorantes, trattorias, pizzerias and ice cream stands scattered among shops selling shoes, purses, expensive clothes and knock off electronics all with a seemingly arbitrary schedule of operation. 

Church of St. Lorenzo--stark black and white marble exterior; painted by angels inside. Tour groups of kids taking pictures, tired travelers resting out of the sun, a few practitioners praying and a white cloaked priest talking on a cell phone. You can visit Columbus's home, a 20 ft square box of old rock (rebuilt after his discovery of the West Indies) for 4 euro. A bus ticket gets us on a boat. We join tourists and commuters to Pegli. We wait for the return boat at Oasis del Mar--a family run bar overlooking the bay with only us and the family as customers. Back in port after dark. We're tired and hungry. Walked up to Ferrari fountain to catch the bus with plan to grab pizza at the place above the hostel. Bought a couple of stale couissants at a bar as back up. Pizza joint closed. Thankfully the "bar" at the hostel is open. Microwave pasta and tomato sauce with stale couissants for dinner. Bier included in the price of the meal.