The Italian Rivieria

  Genoa, Italian Riviera, Italy
Thursday, October 9, 2008

So for two nights I stayed in Genoa and couchsurfed with Franco, a very kind accountant (and ladies, he's single!). Genoa is an amazingly beautiful city, its spread out along the coast of the Mediterranean Ocean, and has the largest aquarium in Europe. The landscape around Genoa is very hilly, and the city extends from the coast up to the tops of the first set of hills overlooking the ocean. It's a port city, and you can see large barges anchored off the coast, along with massive cruise ships parked in the center port that is in the heart of the city.

The streets are your typical Italian size: narrow. Unlike Torino, which, due to its close proximity to France, has French style streets (wide), Genoa has your typical ancient, narrow, wind-ey streets. Fortunately, the tourist office offers a very accurate and helpful map of the center of Genoa. I would show it to you when I get back, but I lost it. However, not after I was done exploring the amazing Genoa center.

Genova is famous for being the birthplace of Pesto, and last night Franco made me a delicious dinner that included some excellant pesto. We talked a lot about the economic situation in the states (who isn't?), and his mother even called him to ask if they should be worrying about some of their stocks (they're invested in some big italian banks).
People here are just as worried as people at home.

The aquarium was spectacular, they had a 3d movie about sharks. Strangely enough (for an aquarium) they had multiple exhibits dedicated to land animals. They even had a 'hummingbird' forest that I went into. The birds were all perched the entire time I was in there, and they just made a lot of noise.

After the aquarium, I went back to Franco's apartment, which is located in the nicest neighborhood in Genova called Nervi. His apartment is a 2 min. walk from this boardwalk-like structure that's really more of a stonewalk. The Genovan coast is very cliffy and rocky, and the walkway goes along the cliffs some ways before heading down to a stone beach. There I went swimming in the ocean. The water was excellent, way warmer than Skaneateles, and I felt so buoyant. It was very refreshing. When I walked out a woman came up and asked me if the water was cold (Ha fredo? Ha fredo?) I said no so she got changed right there and then went in for a dip. As I walked home, the stone wall to my right radiated out the heat it had been absorbing all day from the sun and it felt very nice.

I had a great time in Genoa, it was a gorgeous port city. Now I'm to head inward to Bologna, a city famous for having the first university in Europe (in 1088) and for having excellent food (tortellini).

P.S. It has come to my attention that my father is distributing fake photos of me on my journeys. I have only sent back one true photo, and here it is:

Me