Genova, Italy by Kev

16.7.2025. We have gone and done it. We bought some hop-on-hop-off bus tickets. The idea was sound, get on and the bus wherever, whenever you like. There's info to listen to while you're on the bus. Sounds great right? Nah it was kinda shit. “On your right you'll see some famous Italian guy's statue”, wait where? Did we pass it already? There was some interesting information, but nothing I couldn't find on google. We hopped off and walked around. Now that's how you see a city. I find Genova a bit tighter and taller than most of the French cities I have visited. One part of the city is built as a labyrinth. This was done to trap pirates who would attack the city from time to time. They would enter and have trouble getting back out. We learnt that during the crusades Genova adopted the St George red cross flag, and it had one of the most formidable armies. So much so that during the 13th century, England struck a deal with them and would pay annual tribute to them to be able to fly the Genovese flag for their armies. This would deter their enemies. The UK still uses it, and it has become part of the Union Jack. Anyway, back to sightseeing. We saw tall buildings, built up on hills, with statues and small bridges built between them. We visited churches, yes more churches. Some of the tallest we've seen, and I feel more intricately decorated than those we saw in France. Well I guess this is where Catholicism was born. I'm not religious, but I can appreciate brilliant craftsmanship. I really enjoy seeing the stained glass windows and huge pipe organs. We found a little pizza/calzone/Italian stuff place in our wanderings, and since it was lunch time, we grabbed some food. This place had what I would describe as square shaped pizza. Big square's cut into smaller square's. Mel grabbed a cheese one, Andrew a pesto one and Emma a tomato one. Me? I grabbed a calzone. It was stuffed with a nice cheese and ham. The pesto got too much for Andrew, so he and Mel swapped. The tomato got too much for Emma, so we swapped. Oh man! The tomato stuff on this thing was amazing, right up my alley. We were all fed for €17. We hopped back on the bus, and rode it towards a massive lighthouse. When we hopped off the ticket person asked if we were going to the lighthouse. Yup. “Here's a map, also it's closed today”. Hoo bloody ray. Oh well, let's head there and just have a look around. Turns out the little map we got wasn't worth 2 knobs of goat shit, and after a walk, we couldn't get any closer than maybe 200m from the lighthouse. Luckily it was pretty big so we could actually see it. We started walking back to the bus stop, stopping to grab some pasta and cheese from a shop. We hopped on the bus and headed back towards our stay. It's pretty hot here and we've done a fair bit of walking, so everyone was ok with heading back and relaxing. We blogged a bit, made and ate dinner. Watched some Netflix and hit the sack.

17.7.2025. Today we're on the tour bus again, the blue line or coastline route today. We hopped on and went for a ride. We rode right to the very end, where there is/was a fishing village. What we saw when we got off was not what we were expecting. Everything is built up, nowhere can you see what resembles a fishing village. All you can see are buildings, and umbrellas. We walked, a little disappointed back towards the city. We noticed lots of beach area with lots of umbrellas. We also noticed that to gain access to these areas you have to pay. Private owned beach areas? Great. We kept on walking and finally found an area we had access to. It was run down, with broken concrete and fences around it, but it was free. It was not a sandy beach, lots of rocks of all different sizes, which made clicking sounds as the waves crashed in and went out. The kids played for a bit, first chucking rocks and splashing a bit. Then they built a fort and tested it against the waves. We sat, getting hotter on the sand. Finally we'd had enough, the kids hadn't, we had. We'd had enough walking, and waited at the next bus stop. We rode it back into the city and found some lunch. The waiter at lunch was very helpful, a little pushy I thought but helpful. We had a starter which was very nice. Then some pasta, which was also nice. When it was time for the bill, we found out that you pay for the seat. I guess that means you don't have to worry about tipping, but it was still a bit surprising. After lunch we searched for a cable car, funicular they call it here. We were interested in taking it to a view point to have a look around. We searched for a bit using GMaps, where we ended up at the top of a hilly park, no cable car here. We looked at the map given to us with the bus tickets, and headed where we thought it may be. When we were about to give up, Mel spotted the sign. Funicular something something. The sign looked legit, however, the door was closed and locked. Well that's the end of that. Feeling defeated, we headed back towards our apartment. We were done for the day. Once back, we all blogged a bit, Mel caught up on work stuff a bit and we rested.

18.7.2025. Today we are going to the aquarium, then to a sensory play place. We started with the aquarium. There was a lot in the aquarium, it did not seem to end. We spent a good 3 hours visiting, rushing a little at the end because we all wanted some lunch and we had the sensory place to visit too. Lunch was pizza from a small shop. I noticed they also sold beer on tap and cocktails. For the first time I also saw white wine on tap. That's a new one. With lunch done, we headed to the sensory place. There were all sorts of different things to try, testing all the senses. The kids especially liked the sound room. There was a small room where you could scream as loud as you could, and it would tell you how loud you were in decibels. Andrew hit the highest with 118 decibels. Which just confirmed that kids are noisy. There were optical illusions and things to smell. A big room full of foam building blocks. The kids made their own thing, then collaborated on a “marble run” construction. We finished in a room at the end that had a hand cranked crane, conveyor belt thing and house you could climb around. It was full of foam blocks and wheel barrows. Afterwards, we found some gelato. I don't normally like too much sweet stuff, but I had to try. The Caffe and pistachio gelato was good. The pistachio was very good. We then found a small supermarket and got some eggs and cheese for tonight's dinner. We walked back, blogged some more, we're trying to catch up, made dinner and finished a movie on Netflix. Bed time.

19.7.2025. Today we are packing and moving again. We have a train to catch at 12, heading to Florence. We'll see how that goes.
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