Sept 27 – Genova and Santa Margherita Ligure

Piazza de Ferrari

On Saturday we woke bright and early to meet in Piazza Indipendenza for a 3.5 hour bus ride to Genova. Genova, an important seaport, is just north of Cinque Terre on the far northwest coast of Italy.

St. Lawrence Cathedral

 

When we arrived we had a nice walking tour of the city and saw all the basic important areas.. Tours of towns I don’t know from history class or something can be a little boring, but it’s still cool to learn new things. Genova wasn’t all that exciting historically, but it had some pretty architecture. Although, I’m not sure how many more cathedrals I can be excited to see haha. Yes, I am a bit bored with the tours and staring at buildings.. but I know I will appreciate being able to see all these things soon enough.

Genovan Farinata (left) and fish (right)

After the tour we had 2 hours of free time. Katie and I went to a tiny hole-in-the-wall local place to get some specialty Genovan food. We both ordered Farinata and some fish. Farinata is a chickpea flatbread. It was a real different texture but the flavor was excellent. The fish was….the best hot, greasy, fried fish I have ever had. When I took the first bite, it almost fell out of my mouth because my jaw dropped at how tasty it was.

Since there wasn’t much to do, we decided to check out the Acquario de Genova. I personally love aquariums and could spend all day in them so I was quite excited. I am one of those people that likes to read pretty much everything and take tons of time at each “station”. The sharks were the best. I got some video of them but no pictures.. (side note: I’ve decided I am going to collect all my video from my excursions and whatnot and create a sweet Italy video at the end of the semester.) 

Santa Margherita Lugire

 

 On the drive to Santa Margherita, the sun was setting behind us as we drove through the mountains. There were a countless number of long tunnels that go literally through the mountains instead of going up them or around them.. It was rather annoying because we weren’t able to see a lot of the beautiful scenery, but when we did, it was amazing! The terraced olive trees, the colorful towns in the valleys, the endless sea out in front of them.. We passed through a town called Repallo–a retirement area with golf courses, tennis courts, soccer fields.. Right after Repallo we entered a suuuuper skinny road that made us all nervous on our huge bus. This road was seriously a path to one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen in Italy. Santa Margherita Ligure è una città bella! Katie, Aniesa and I were talking earlier about honeymoon locations; if we could go anywhere in the world for our honeymoon, where would it be? When we arrived we decided this would be a great location. Amazing.. beautiful water.. beautiful town. I don’t know quite how to describe it. You just might have to go there on your own!

Santa Margherita Lugire

In any case, we arrived in Santa Margherita and had a quick walking tour. I really enjoyed the buildings–they were all painted with colors of the sunset.. oranges, reds, corals, pinks,.. There were also some really interesting facades that had fake windows or designs painted on them because it was cheaper than buying marble or other materials.

Once the tour was over, our guide pointed out the best gelato place in town…and boy was she right! I got a cone with caffe and ciocolato gelato. It was so good but super messy. It was pretty warm out so the gelato melted pretty quick and all over me! I felt like a 5 year old haha. Check it out:

The best gelato in town!