It all started so well in Genoa. It looked beautiful from the boat as we moored in the port…and then we had to drive off the ferry, almost colliding with an HGV because we weren’t prepared for the Le Mans style start from the ferry parking space. When we got off the Bilbao ferry, everyone was in their cars for 10 – 15 minutes while everything was made safe. In Italy they drop the ferry door and everyone’s off!
For Brits it was gratifying that we were the only car that managed to get off the ferry and drive on the right! All of the other cars drove down the right hand lane of a dual-carriageway and boy did they look miffed when they saw us at the port exit!
For every legend about Italian drivers I can now confirm that there’s no smoke without fire. They are absolutely mental. It’s every man, woman child, cat and dog for himself. Indicators are a sign of weakness and / or contrition, the horn and wild gesticulation is the only form of communication, and you don’t so much park as stop wherever you fancy.
After a 15 minute drive that felt like 15 hours we got to the hotel. This one’s a Novotel which is the same chain but a bit posher than the Ibis hotels we have been staying in. It has a nice lobby, reception desk and bar but no Wi-Fi. Shame on you Novotel! There is a PC in the lobby where you can swipe your credit card and get access but you can’t copy and paste the offline blogs because there’s no USB port. Grrrr!
Apart from that the hotel is fine. The room is big and overlooks the port of Genoa. The temperatures have ranged from 32ºC during the day to 22ºC even at 2am. How do we know this? It’s a long story…
We took a short walk from the hotel to find a bar, fund one and had a couple of beers (naturally) to recover from the drive from the port. We went back and booked a taxi at the hotel reception to go into the main town and find some dinner.
The old town is very Italian with wide open piazzas discovered by walking through narrow streets, all the time dodging the ever-present mopeds. It’s a really beautiful place. We found a Trattoria / Pizzeria on a pedestrianised street lined with 4 or 5 storey shuttered apartment buildings.
Now I have a strong belief, often shared, that pizza is the King of Food and Italian pizza surpasses every other one I have ever eaten. Bellisimo! I realise now why foreign visitors comment that the British version of pizza is boiled, not baked. You can forget Pizza Hut, Domino’s or even Pizza Express – this was the real deal. I had a Quattro Stagioni, olives, artichoke hearts, ham and loads more. Ali had a Vesuvius – salami and cayenne peppers. We decided that it would be good to eat ‘continental style’ and take our time, chatting, drinking, smoking and watching the world go by and it took us a couple of hours to see off our pizzas. They really do have the right attitude to food and drink here. They even sell beer and wine by the litre jug – Heaven really does exist!
We had probably had about enough beer and wine when we got back to the hotel, and maybe should have been sensible enough to realise this, but the bar was open and so we settled in for a couple more. The point at which I suggested that we should have a shot of Grappa while in Italy should definitely have rung the alarm bells. It tastes like shit in restaurants at home so why would it be any better in Genoa? Ali had never tried it before and I should have known better because it was foul!!
There was another patron at the bar and we struck up a conversation with him. He shook his head and asked us why on earth we would drink “Crappa”. He was a very nice bloke from Holland and quite knowledgeable about the Italian and French Riviera. We only wished that we could have remembered half the things he said the next day!
By this time the bar had shut and again we should have taken this as a clear sign that we should retire but oh no, not us. We went for a walk and found an all night bar in a bit of a run down part of town where we kept ordering the beer until we ran out of cigarettes, which the bar did not sell. (Yes, the European non- smoking lobby have got to Italy as well.) There was only one thing for it – we could have another beer if we could surpass the language barrier and buy some cigarettes from one of the other patrons of the bar, all of whom were completely pissed as well. How we managed this I don’t know but we did, and made a friend at the same time. He wouldn’t accept payment for the cigarettes so we repaid him in the universal currency of beer!
We staggered back to the hotel and collapsed taking a photo on the way of a sign that showed the time and the temperature, 26ºC and 0200. Italy, Genoa…what a brilliant place!
For Brits it was gratifying that we were the only car that managed to get off the ferry and drive on the right! All of the other cars drove down the right hand lane of a dual-carriageway and boy did they look miffed when they saw us at the port exit!
For every legend about Italian drivers I can now confirm that there’s no smoke without fire. They are absolutely mental. It’s every man, woman child, cat and dog for himself. Indicators are a sign of weakness and / or contrition, the horn and wild gesticulation is the only form of communication, and you don’t so much park as stop wherever you fancy.
After a 15 minute drive that felt like 15 hours we got to the hotel. This one’s a Novotel which is the same chain but a bit posher than the Ibis hotels we have been staying in. It has a nice lobby, reception desk and bar but no Wi-Fi. Shame on you Novotel! There is a PC in the lobby where you can swipe your credit card and get access but you can’t copy and paste the offline blogs because there’s no USB port. Grrrr!
Apart from that the hotel is fine. The room is big and overlooks the port of Genoa. The temperatures have ranged from 32ºC during the day to 22ºC even at 2am. How do we know this? It’s a long story…
We took a short walk from the hotel to find a bar, fund one and had a couple of beers (naturally) to recover from the drive from the port. We went back and booked a taxi at the hotel reception to go into the main town and find some dinner.
The old town is very Italian with wide open piazzas discovered by walking through narrow streets, all the time dodging the ever-present mopeds. It’s a really beautiful place. We found a Trattoria / Pizzeria on a pedestrianised street lined with 4 or 5 storey shuttered apartment buildings.
Now I have a strong belief, often shared, that pizza is the King of Food and Italian pizza surpasses every other one I have ever eaten. Bellisimo! I realise now why foreign visitors comment that the British version of pizza is boiled, not baked. You can forget Pizza Hut, Domino’s or even Pizza Express – this was the real deal. I had a Quattro Stagioni, olives, artichoke hearts, ham and loads more. Ali had a Vesuvius – salami and cayenne peppers. We decided that it would be good to eat ‘continental style’ and take our time, chatting, drinking, smoking and watching the world go by and it took us a couple of hours to see off our pizzas. They really do have the right attitude to food and drink here. They even sell beer and wine by the litre jug – Heaven really does exist!
We had probably had about enough beer and wine when we got back to the hotel, and maybe should have been sensible enough to realise this, but the bar was open and so we settled in for a couple more. The point at which I suggested that we should have a shot of Grappa while in Italy should definitely have rung the alarm bells. It tastes like shit in restaurants at home so why would it be any better in Genoa? Ali had never tried it before and I should have known better because it was foul!!
There was another patron at the bar and we struck up a conversation with him. He shook his head and asked us why on earth we would drink “Crappa”. He was a very nice bloke from Holland and quite knowledgeable about the Italian and French Riviera. We only wished that we could have remembered half the things he said the next day!
By this time the bar had shut and again we should have taken this as a clear sign that we should retire but oh no, not us. We went for a walk and found an all night bar in a bit of a run down part of town where we kept ordering the beer until we ran out of cigarettes, which the bar did not sell. (Yes, the European non- smoking lobby have got to Italy as well.) There was only one thing for it – we could have another beer if we could surpass the language barrier and buy some cigarettes from one of the other patrons of the bar, all of whom were completely pissed as well. How we managed this I don’t know but we did, and made a friend at the same time. He wouldn’t accept payment for the cigarettes so we repaid him in the universal currency of beer!
We staggered back to the hotel and collapsed taking a photo on the way of a sign that showed the time and the temperature, 26ºC and 0200. Italy, Genoa…what a brilliant place!
