Italy – Genoa & Savona 3/9/16 – 5/9/16

Hi from Genoa, or as the Italians spell it Genova. Another great train journey this time heading south from Milan to Genova thanks to Trenitalia. It took just over 2 hours. We got on a right posh train and settled in only to be turfed out the seats. We hadn’t noticed we were auto allocated seats so had to haul all our luggage through a few coaches while it was moving! Once here we jumped in a cab only to be told the streets are too narrow for cars so we had to walk. It actually only took us less than 10 minutes. The area we are in is full of Africans loitering about staring. There are a lot of small shops along our street, it smells really bad, has rubbish everywhere including dead rats. Needless to say we were a bit intimidated. The apartment we are in is fine if you like tiny wee kitchens with really high up cupboards and a tiny low ceiling bathroom where even i have to stoop in the shower so Roy has no chance! We did venture out into the main part of the city opposite the port and found a nice place to eat. Much nicer in this area, still quite small in comparison to other cities, there are a few squares, quite plain and we decided not to explore the numerous other tiny side streets. This city has a Europe’s largest aquarium including the largest entrance fee so we will not be going there either.

Savona

Today we planned on our day trip to a couple of towns along Cinque Terre, however, when we got to the train station the next direct train was fully booked and it would be over an hours wait and a station change for the next one. So we bought tickets for tomorrow instead and jumped on a train to Savona for the day. This was just over an hours ride, some of it along the coast but mostly in tunnels. Savona is a seaport town in Liguria. Well it took us half an hour just to get out the station, every exit had no buses, no taxi’s no nothing to help us get into town. So we stood around like 2 tourists just arrived and eventually a taxi arrived and took us to the Duomo. We were the only people around so decided to head to the port and found a load of restaurants, still no others but it is Sunday. Anyway, half an hour later and people started to arrive for lunch. A further walk around the port showed it as the place to be in the evening as there we numerous other restaurants and bars (closed). We then ventured into town and found the main road with shops but most were closed (again we turn up at the wrong time) but still had a wander.
I don’t think there’s anything else to say about this place, but strangely enough it had a couple of huge cruise liners in the port! Where were it’s passengers? Where were the locals? Where were the other tourists? Very strange place, perhaps different on other days, but we weren’t impressed by it at all.
Glad we’ve got tickets to Cinque Terra tomorrow, as we don’t want to hang around Genova any more than we have too.