Sexy Pins
Trip Start
Aug 28, 2007
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11
23
Trip End
Dec 16, 2007
Genoa,
Italy
Friday, September 7, 2007
This weekend we went to Genova (the "v" is silent so there is often 2 ways of spelling it - but they are one in the same), Italy and Nice, France. It's so hard to pick a favorite from the two, they were both so incredibly beautiful. We noticed that each had a very high overlook where you could see the entire city, Genova - the harbor, and Nice, the waterfall. The train tickets cost 62 euro total (there and back) and all together (attractions, meals, postcards, wine) totaled to 200 euro. Not bad for a weekend trip to two major harbors/coast lines!
Friday morning we left for Genova at 8:30 am from the Santa Maria Novella train station. We made it to the station with enough time to grab a bite to eat for breakfast, the fastest we found, of course, was McDonald's. Go figure. The best part about it was the hash-brown, I should have gotten two of those instead of one hash-brown and a ham, egg & cheese (it was not very good half way through it).
Water fountain we found inside a building
We managed to find a car with an empty "cubby" I guess you'd call it, so we were all able to sit down together. On the way, we traveled along the coast line and saw so many small villages and AMAZING views of the coast line and the cliffs! We arrived in Genova at about noon and began walking to find the hotel. Ashley had booked two rooms (one sleeping 2 and one sleeping 3) for a night (32 euro each) at the Mini Hotel. On the way there we started joking about maybe how the rooms would be very small as well as the beds and we'd feel like Goldilocks in Baby Bear's bed. But luckily, it was very quint and perfect for what we needed, a place to stay and a hot shower.After dropping our things off we set out to find the harbor with cameras in hand. We got a bit lost but managed to find the main road to the harbor; however on the way we found several open doors that lead to an amazing fountain and beautiful courtyards (so obviously we had to take some pictures of those). Once we got down to the harbor you could immediately tell that Renzo Piano had designed it. As I mentioned in the last blog (but for those who I just added to the mailing list), the City of Genova commissioned Renzo Piano (very famous architect) to redesign the harbor in 1992 for the 500 year anniversary celebration of Christopher Columbus setting sail (he was born in Genova). It was so amazing to actually see the buildings and structures we had studied in our architecture courses. The pin connections he designed were even sexier in person (I'm a nerd I know).
I'm such a photography nerd
It's one thing to see the buildings and the details on a screen or on paper, but to see the shear size and proportions in real life is amazing, you appreciate it even more.After taking a lot of pictures of the harbor, we grabbed a bite to eat at a burger place (we figured we'd go cheap for lunch and all out for dinner). From lunch we walked over and stood in line at the attraction booth where you get your tickets for various museums and excursions on the harbor. We all wanted to go into the Aquarium and the Maritime Museum (Renzo designed both), luckily they had a package deal for 22 euro for the two of them (11 euro a piece). The Aquarium is noted as the second largest aquarium in Europe. They had penguins, dolphins, exotic jellyfish, sharks, your normal fish you find in an aquarium, and an UGLY looking "sun fish" so they called it. Mom you would have LOVED it! But I took tons of pictures for you. I apologize for the poor quality of some of the photos, we were not allowed to use flash in the Aquarium, which apparently with my camera it requires you to not move in the slightest bit when you take the picture without the flash. So. I did what I could. We then walked over to the Maritime Museum where we got to see the process of Renzo's designs for the harbor.
When we walked into the first room past the desk, the right wall was covered with an Aeriel map of the existing harbor (before Renzo redesigned it) and on the left wall was COVERED with a huge model of the harbor. Each of his buildings were made out of balsa wood in generous detail! To give you an idea how big this room was and how big the models and maps where, picture a room that was about 30 feet long and 12 feet tall.
again, nerd
HUGE models. There were two tables in the room, one had the final technical drawings of the entire harbor on it (each building), the other had all of Renzo's diagrams and conceptual sketches. It was so amazing to see that the things we do in studio are still used by such a successful architect. As we wondered through the museum we found some "sets" to take pictures on/with. I have to get those pictures from Erin and the girls. We then went up to a small restaurant/cafe that was on the second floor, so we sat outside on a terrace designed by Renzo Piano and had coffee and ice cream (I had the ice cream of course).Kara proposed we go visit a large garden area in a palace that was shown on the map, so before we headed back to the room we attempted to go find it. We saw a more direct route that included a more industrial spiral stair and a road/ramp to get up to the main road from the back of the museum, so Ashley wanted to go up the spiral stair. Kara and I were following a little behind Erin, Ashley, and Dana and they screamed and ran back to us. Apparently all over the stairs there was nasty trash, condoms, and used needles. So we quickly retreated and went up the ramp instead. The gardens ended up being closed (the small gate from the palace) but we were able to take pictures over the small wall. Dana wanted to go onto a thing called the Biglo, which was a circular platform surrounded in glass, that people fit into and a set of cables (which was connected to Renzo's structure in the water) actually carried you up and spun you around (slowly) so you can get a panorama view of the city and harbor.
Water fountain 2
Of course I took pictures of this and have yet to piece them together, please be patient, it will be well worth it!At the hotel we were able to take a hot shower (recently for the past 4 days our apartment hasn't had warm water, so we've been taking ice cold showers). It felt so amazing. So after showering and relaxing a bit, we got all dolled up for dinner and going out on the harbor. We ate at a restaurant over looking the harbor from about 8 stories in the air. The view and the food were so good. Kara ordered clams/oysters and a tuna steak; Dana got a tuna steak and salad; Erin had a meat plater with steak, sausage, and wuster (spelling?); Ash had a shrimp dish, and I had steak of course. We were all so excited because we finally had some REAL protein! Sooo good. Our waiter was nice; however he asked to speak to me and show me the sushi bar and as I got up I thought everyone was invited. Well. Apparently that wasn't the case, we started walking towards the sushi bar and he stopped me at a desk on the side of the hall way and informed me that he liked me. I said "thank you, thats very nice of you," and then he lunged at me with his tongue out and eyes closed, I told him I was flattered and said "no grazie" (very polite decline). As I was walking away he asked me for my number and I told him I didn't have a cell phone and he told me "I will keep you here" and pointed at his chest. Cute, SIKE! So mortified I ran away as fast as my heels would let me, I informed the girls that we were to make the fastest and most direct escape with no loud laughing until we got in the elevator (we had paid) but we laughed anyways on the way there. I know you laughed at this...but it really isn't funny. Okay, it is, but it sucked. After dinner we walked to the other side of the harbor and sat down at a restaurant/bar where we ordered a 2L tap of beer for the 5 of us. It honestly looked like a coffee maker, except filled with cold beer instead. So we sat down there for two hours and just talked and laughed. I took pictures of the harbor at night, as well as some of us, of course.
