Days 39- 45 Genoa

Ciao a tutti!

This weekend, we planned on seeing Venice but unfortunately, all the train tickets and group trips were sold out. So instead, we planned a trip to Genoa, Christopher Colombus' home town. On the way there, we took a slow train so the trip was about 3 hours. We left Florence around 7 a.m. and arrived in Genoa at about 10:30. When we first got off the train, there was a huge statue of Cristoforo Colombo outside of the train station. You could tell that they take him very seriously, considering that he is probably the most important person that Genoa has ever produced. After that, we walked around the city, eventually making our way down to the water. Genoa is a port city located on the coast, north east of Florence. It is actually best known for its pesto, apparently Genovese style pesto is supposed to be the best there is in Italy. So, after walking around for about an hour, we decided to find a place to eat near the water. We chose a restaurant that we could see all the boats from. If you have been to San Diego harbor, this is pretty much what the harbor looked like. For lunch, I ordered pizza and salad but Ana ordered the pesto and I tried a little piece. The verdict? Nothing special in terms of pesto. I am sure we were not at the best restaurant that Genoa has to offer, but I wasn't especially impressed. The other famous part of Genoa is the aquarium on the harbor. Unfortunately, we didn't go in because the tickets were kinda pricey, but it looked cool from what I could see. Instead, we just walked around the harbor and looked at all the boats. There were a couple you could pay to see and go on like you can do in San Diego but we were fine with just looking. I also imagine that Genoa is a huge port for cruise stops because there were a couple huge cruise ships docked in the marina.  Also, there were tons of yachts so my friends and I decided to each choose one for ourselves so that we could pretend that we were going to take one out for a ride. We decided to cut back into the city and see what else there was and of course, we found ourselves shopping. There has to be an H&M in just about every city in Europe now because we have found them everywhere so far. Anyway, Genoa was beautiful because of this location on the water, but I was somewhat unimpressed by the actual city. Some of the architecture and design did not make any sense to me; sometimes there were buildings in the city that had kinda tacky painted on windows and decks... very strange. Compared to the architecture in Firenze, and in other places I have visited, I was a little disappointed. We grabbed some pizza for dinner and then headed back to the station for the train home. Overall, an enjoyable day, but no match for my "home" town of Florence. We also decided to buy our train tickets farther in advance for Venice so that we could go the next weekend. I couldn't wait :)