Day 13 - Monday 19 September - Milan to Genoa

Slept til about 06:00 although Mum had been awake for hours.

Got up and ready and had a nice breakfast downstairs.

Out the door by 07:45 to get to the station in time to get tickets (I still can't figure out how to get a seniors ticket on the Trenitalia machines) and to the train to find a seat where we could stash our bags in sight.

Fairly quiet trip to start with but it kept filling up with people including one couple where the woman blasted the carriage with the crap she was watching on her phone, and another couple of women who sat down next to us demanding something in Italian that we couldn't understand. Turns out she wanted the power points. Which this train had. Which didn't work. We'd tried. (I'd been wanting to do some Genoa research but didn't want to flatten my battery). Anyway so the one next to me spent the entire trip babbling away.

Me and Mum at Genoa Piazza Principe train station

So got to Genoa and luckily we were able to checkin, so that was super nice. Really nice bathroom too. So dumped our stuff and headed out again.

View toward Genoa from the rooftop of our hotel

View of Genoa Piazza Principe train station from the rooftop of our hotel

We did a super long walk through town, which actually went quicker than I thought it would.

University of Genoa

Santissima Annunziata del Vastato

We walked past all the palaces.

Palazzo Nicolo Lomellini

Palazzo Grimaldi della Meridiana

Buildings in Genoa

And through piazzas.

Garibaldi statue in front of Opera Carlo Felice Genova

Fountain in Piazza Raffaele de Ferrari

Palazzo della Borsa Valori

And to an old city gate.

Genoa is super tourist friendly and has these cool walking routes you can do. I'd like to go back one day and do them.

Cloister of Sant'Andrea

Porta Soprana old city gate

Arch and building in Genoa

Chiesa di Santo Stefano and Ponte Monumentale

Palazzo Ducale

And to the cathedral, including going up to the roof.

Cattedrale di San Lorenzo

Interior of Cattedrale di San Lorenzo

Rose window in Cattedrale di San Lorenzo

Roof of Cattedrale di San Lorenzo

View north from the roof of Cattedrale di San Lorenzo

Roof of Cattedrale di San Lorenzo

And to a basilica.

Santa Maria delle Vigne

Interior of Santa Maria delle Vigne

And had some lunch next to said basilica.

And then ended up at the harbour.

Piazza Caricamento

Buildings off Piazza Caricamento

Vascello Neptune - replica of a 1600s Spanish galleon

Neptune figurehead

Palazzo San Giorgio

And it was still quite early. So we thought we'd hop on the little tourist train for a seated tour. So that was quite nice.

Santissima Annunziata del Vastato

Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta in Carignano

Chiesa di Santo Stefano

Palazzo Pastorino

Tower of Viletta Serra

Castello D'Albertis

Porta dei Vacca

Me next to the street train we toured around Genoa on
Photo by Mum

Then we went up the "lift" for some impressive views of the city.

Bigo (lift)

The Lift in Genoa

Cattedrale di San Lorenzo from the Lift

View of Genoa from the Lift

Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta in Carignano from the Lift

View of Genoa from the Lift

Roof of an ice skating rink from the Lift

Genoa had quite a nice vibe to it, and I wouldn't mind spending some more time here to explore things like the old walls, which are pretty extensive.

Except then we had to deal with the Metro. Which should have been easy, as there's really only one line. Except the damned machine took my money for two tickets but only printed ONE ticket. Bastards. The ticket barriers were pretty crap anyway, so Mum convinced me to just skip getting another ticket and catch the train anyway. Turns out the station at Principe didn't have any barriers anyway, so that was all good. But it did sour my mood a bit. And I was hot and tired and sweaty and just wanted a takeaway beer but we hiked all the way up a hill to a supermarket but they didn't have anything cold so had to hike all the way down again, but eventually found some on the main road near the hotel. So had that and freshened up before heading out to dinner.

Genoa Piazza Principe train station from the west

Dinner was nice enough but nothing special but at least it was handy to the hotel.

Got back and went to open the safe but it wouldn't open and I couldn't understand why so we had to call them to come open it. Which made me all sorts of grumpy. I'm too tired to deal with this crap :(