Genoa day visit

Genoa is a ninety minute drive from Neive - or perhaps 75 minutes if you are with Carlo driving a BMW. We had a rental car today and possibly a first we WERE the speediest car on the road ( at times anyway). It is probably good that we have a slumber minivan and not the zoomer we had today. I think Carlo has drunk the koolaid on the BMW make of cars...

Anyway, we had been to Genoa once before but it was for a boat show and a trip to the Aquarium with grandparents and 4 kids - that was a different "tourist" experience. Today, we have four hours to do whatever and we decided to just walk mostly and find a lunch spot. So , after an uneventful freeway drive and an oops - founds the one way streets already!- in Geneo , we parked and started walking. We breezed by the three palaces and will visit one or some on another visit - and instead gawked at the palazzos on that same street peeking into courtyards and peering into some windows. We found a pretty spectacular water feature/grotto in one courtyard! Carlo had read that Genoa was the first place to really DO window grating - so we have a few shots of that. Carlo took lots of pictures this trip.

We accidentally found a tiny chocolate shop that I had seen on some blog or another. We bought some of them, but then Carlo had to try these chocolate pastilles with flavorings like: basil, anise, red pepper, coriander - you get the idea. I have no interest at all. The place definitely had the aura of artiginale ( artisanal) work, and the slow food people must swoon over it.

We also found a big – I would assume chain- book shop that had a great selection for kids ( Italian books). We picked up some more Asterix, Geronimo Stilton and Richard Scarey and Dave Pilkey.

Via Settembre XX is the high street lined with porticos and mostly the same shops found in each Italian city of a certain size (H&M, Zara, Motivi, Intimisso, Benetton, etc etc.). We had previously passed high end shops (Ferragamo, Prada, etc) but skipped by those as again they are in each Italian city. Carlo took lots of pictures of buildings which are highly decorated and varied. We then by accident found the Marcatino Orientale which I had read about, Very nice fresh food market with many, many stalls for fish, meat, poultry, cheese, and fruits and veg.

Have I mentioned that the street names are the same in each city in Italy here are some:

via Roma, via XX Settembre, via Garibaldi, via Cavour, Via Vittorio Emmanuele

There are about 10 more and then the next 10 if the city gets larger. I suppose we have the same in the US - main, 1st 2nd , tree names ...

We found a nice lunch spot after (of course!) waiting til a decent Italian lunch time of 1:30 or so ( and Carlo was STARVING at this point) called "the 3 crows" - in Italian. We were thinking of perhaps fast food - like farinata (focaccia’ish bread mad with chick pea flour - similar to socca in France), or fried seafood )( for Carlo) – but anyway we found the 3 crows. Had their thin cheesy focaccia a la Recco – the next village over ( yum and perfect when you are STARVING!), lasagna made with chestnut flour pasta, and rigatoni with sausages and cheese. The lasagna was wonderful and delicate with a light cheese/nut sauce. The rigatoni was not just al dente but al cemente J as I told Carlo – of course he loved it! The dish was tasty as could be with perfetto sausages. The wine was a white one and delish – starts with a “V” I think - Vermentino I just asked Carlo.

So we step out of lunch and start walking a few steps and find we are in the heart of some kind of prostitute area and the girls are all out and about (completely in black and each one in super high heeled, thigh high black boots) of course because everyone (else) is off work for the long lunch. Very, very odd experience.

After that we had to hightail it back to the car to get the boys from school in time back in Neive.

Next time in Genoa: palace/museum visit, more street wandering, farinata, perhaps ride up to the hilltops to get a view of the city.