An early morning today because we packed up all of our things to get to the train station. We had a one-hour ride to Pisa, then a quick ten minute transfer to catch the Intercity to Genoa, an approximately two-hour ride.
The trip from Pisa to Genoa starts with an overland section before getting to the coast. There a few glimpses of the Ligurian Sea down the odd street, but otherwise you are in built-up areas. That is, until you get to La Spezia. A very large part of the remaining trip is in tunnels through the mountains, but the parts that aren’t provide spectacular, albeit sometimes brief, views of the sea. At times you are looking right down in the sea smashing against the rocks. The train passes through many small beach villages along the way, definitely something to visit at some point.
Once we got to Genoa, we took a bus to the apartment and checked in. The lady handing it over to us spoke mostly Spanish, so Chantal was able to use her skills to get all of the details. We did find out that focaccia is something Genoa is know for, and apparently earlier in the day there was a successful attempt to cook the world’s longest focaccia ever made right out front of where we are staying. 350 m long, and eligible for the Guinness book of world records. That’s very unfortunate to miss out on by mere hours!
We had a food tour booked for the evening, so met Matteo at Piazza Raffaele de Ferrari, a quick three-minute walk for us. Matteo took us around for about three and a half hours, ultimately providing us with a five course meal by giving us a historical tour with some stops along the way for food. Focaccia, a drink, some tasty appetizers, fresh pasta for the main course, and gelato to end it all off. All of us enjoyed it enormously even if we were stuffed full by the end of it. When Matteo asked if we wanted a quick or long walk to the last stop for gelato, we all voted for the long walk to work off a bit of the food.
Genoa in general is extremely hilly, with downhill almost always going towards the water. It means you need to be ready for long steady hills as well as stairs all over the place. Vehicles aren’t generally allowed in the old city, part of which is because the width of the various roads varies greatly. Some are nice and wide with room for two groups to pass each other with no problems, while others are barely wide enough for a single person to walk down without twisting their shoulders.
Tomorrow most things are closed here, so the plan is to head down to Monterosso, and do some light hiking around there.