Cruise - Day 3 - Genoa

Wow – what can we say about Genoa?  It was here where we got the most rain and it was here where I took most of my photos - 139 of them.  many of them are doubles or triple sets because I was playing with different exposures on my camera because of the dark heavy cloud and dense fog over the city when we arrived.  But we luckily got up in good time to watch our arrival in the port.  We were stunned by the color and could only imagine what it must be like on a clear day.  It was here in Genoa where the most beautiful and colorful building were, of all the cities that we went to.  We liked it so much, even Jens said he would like to see more of the town. 

But let’s back up to breakfast.  Yesterday after almost having a heart attack at the Mad Hatter Breakfast Party, I got smart and decided to ordered room service for the next morning.  We weren’t going to go through that again.  Not only was the horrible food spread out over half a deck, there were 3,000 people you had to fight to get through or around - all of them looking for a spoon no doubt.  So here we were on day 3, sailing into port, in Genoa.  We are in awe of the sheer magic of the colorful city in the rain and fog.  While snapping one picture after the other from our balcony,  there is suddenly a knock on the door.  It's 7:55 - 5 minutes early - that's good.  “Room Service”, called out the bell hop or whatever the guy is titled. “Just a minute”, I replied and quickly checked the mirror to make sure my toupé was correctly set in place.  I opened the door and a fine young Indonesian man in black pants and a very well tailored navy blue sailor jacket with gold details and painfully square shoulder pads walked in through the door with a silver try filled with breakfast goodies.  “Just set the try over there”, I pointed and then Jens handed him a tip.   He had a smile from ear to ear when we gave him 5 euro.

Sailor Sam walked out the door and I quickly placed our breakfast out on the balcony table and we dug in; pouring cups of coffee and buttering up our bread rolls.  We felt like movie stars –   Audrey Hepburn and Eva Gabor (no, not Zsa Zsa), sipping coffee in our terry bathrobes provided by the ship.  There was a notice in our room and on our tickets which read: removal of bath robes, deck towels or the blue leather bound information booklet is not allowed and they are to remain in the cabin upon departure.  Otherwise a charge will be added to our credit card and then they proceeded to list the price of each item.  They wanted 116 euro for each bathrobe.

 
You have got to be chiding!  116 euro for these worn out scratchy rags?? They were so stiff that I wouldn’t even dare dry my car with them.  Nonetheless they kept us warm in the Italian foggo. And get this – the bath robes were actually removed from our cabin the night before departure.  I guess they didn't trust us.

Room service breakfast had very few options but that was ok as you could order as many types of breads as you wanted; butters, jellies, yogurts, pastries, tea, milk bla bla bla – all the standards – but no eggs, cheese, meats or fruit.  What we got was plenty and they even provided a spoon.

This one is for you Alec. Maybe one day soon you will be the ferry sailing to Corsica.

Then we had to deal with the standard hassle of getting off the ship – read yesterday's blog for spooky details.  Before leaving from home, I did an extensive search on Google Earth to see each ship port that we would be visiting and took note of the layout in relation to the city center.  The port in Genoa is just minutes from the center of the city. There are city bus stops near by and a metro.  Jens didn’t want to have to deal with any of that and since we were so close to town we new that a taxi could get us there in just a few seconds.  For sure it would cost less than what we paid for a taxi yesterday.  Wrong!  They don’t use taxi meters in Genoa.  You tell them where you want to go and they quote you a price.  It was the exact same price as yesterday so we just said ok.  The only reason the taxi ride was as long as it was, about 6 or 7 minutes, is because the city is on a hill so it’s all windy roads. If your legs are in good shape you could easily do the walk to town and back if you pace yourself.  The taxi driver, like all taxi drivers, had a special price for us because we are his friends.  We just met him but apparently our wallets provide us with unlimited taxi driver friendship service and special prices.  “Today-za she is-a da Soonday-a. Anna eva-ree ting is-a close-a.  I can-a take-a you to eh……(and then he started to name some near by villages that were also offered on the ship's list of excursion offers)…. Ford-a special-la price-a ford-a you my frien.”    Short and bland we just said, " no thanks, we just want to go to the center of town."   Jens and I both looked at each other reading each others thoughts about our “special price for you my friend” taxi ride in Jerusalem.  I think that taxi ride could almost be consider as kidnapping in legal terms.  But that’s another story for another blog.   I told the taxi drive to "take us to Via Garibaldi" and Jens said "take us to the the center of town."  We got dropped off at the center of town at this beautiful water fountain. The driver pointed out the direction to Via Garibaldi as "over there", where I wanted to go to. Which according to the internet is the street with all of the greatest of building in one place.

What a beautiful town with amazing architecture and color.  It has a long long line of history so I wont even begin to blab about it here other than to say that the city has some of the most beautiful buildings from the 15, 16 and 1700’s.

I want to add so many more than my standard 10 photos.  But I really will try to do my best  to keep it short and sweet.  As mentioned before you will be able to see all of the building I photographed on my shutterfly site when I up load them - I'll let you know.  Most of shots are taken 2 or 3 times with different exposures and F-stops.  But altogether my camera could just not capture the beauty of this city.

This was a very expensive town as there are designer shops everywhere.

After our walk on Via Garibaldi and a few other amazing streets, we needed a sit down to rest our tired puppies.  We went back to the square where we started from.  It was one of the only cafés opened and the only café under what little sunshine there was that morning.   After 2 pannini’s and 4 delicious espressos, we decided to try to walk back to the ship part way and then get in a taxi the rest of the way when we got tired.  But we ended up on streets that were not really conducive to traffic and really didn’t see any taxis in the area.  So we just kept getting closer and closer to the ship and we eventually walked all the way back.  It was much more of a walk than what I wanted to do so I know it was a lot for Jens but we did it.  I was so proud of Jens but now he is paying the price.  However I have tried to encourage him to keep up with the walking to put off any demand of needing a wheel chair and to keep as mobile for as long as possible.

After a long walk along the harbor and finally to the port, we just gotta stop and take a break.  When you can find comfort on a giant granite lounge, you know for sure you are exhausted.

 
We are back now at the port.  In this picture you can actually see our cabin.  Luckily we got on the side of the ship that always seemed to have the best views towards the cities.  Now you can see that the skies are finally starting to clear up.

We are starting to pull out to sea now.  Ciao,  Genoa!  Bellissimo!

What the heck! Tonight’s entertainment is the Good-Bye show.  Wait! What?  All these dancers and singers that we didn’t see in the first show came out to wave good-bye to the audience.  Well… whatever – it was still very entertaining and we got to see what was coming up in the next several shows.  They were all very active circus type shows with lots of very good singing.  But what amazed me the most is that all these circus acts that require lots of balance is taking place on a stage that is rocking back and forth.  We saw one act where one guy was supposed to do a flip from a standing position on another mans shoulders.  It didn’t go well and the flipping guy, when coming around to land back on the shoulders of the big dude, he ended up kicking the guy in the back of his neck.  I screamed.  It hurt me just to watch it.