digitalbugsy

Where is Bugsy?

So, we are finally here. After a 2AM finish on Saturday night, a wedding on Sunday afternoon with lashings of champagne, thunderstorms Sunday night, a 3am start on Monday morning and torrential rain on the motorway to Stansted, we made it. We were forced to sit on the runway for an hour or so while the thunder cleared over London (during which Anna slept, and I tried to sleep on seats which were almost, but not quite, the exact opposite of comfort.

We arrived in Genoa to sunshine and humidity, and after a running commentary of the street names by the old ladies behind us and instruction on the Amici Falso in the Italian language we dumped our bags and headed out into the Italian unknown.

The great thing about Italy (from what we’ve seen so far anyway) is the absolute abundance of snack shops, and when I say snack, I don’t mean Walker’s crisps and Peanut Butter Cups, I mean cheap Panini with prociutto, tomato and mozarella or chargrilled aubergine and ham, or focaccia or… well you get the picture, Italians love their food.

We grabbed ourselves a quick snack and began wandering the rabbit warren that is the old town of Genoa. You can be walking down a tiny street looking like it has no end and next thing you know you pop out beside a little piazza with a mercato selling fresh fruit, or a gelateria… mmm… We popped out next to the port, and Genoa’s pride and joy, the largest aquarium in Europe. We paid the slightly large entrance fee and checked it out.

The thing about aquariums (and zoos too) is the way the animals look so bored. Well, the larger ones at least. There was tank with seals who passed the time by swimming about who, while they looked amazing, were swimming in a kind of 3D figure 8 to pass the time. I understand that often without these kinds of places, many animals couldn’t be studied or looked after but at least give the animals a large enough tank to be comfortable in.

In the evening we went out to a little trattoria for dinner. The menu was small, but the food was great! Gnocci with pesto, a Ligurian specialty for Anna and a stew for me, followed by the obligatory espresso.

All in all a fine start to the Italian experience, tomorrow off to the Cinque Terre…

This entry was posted on Friday, September 9th, 2005 at 1:56 pm and is filed under Continental Europe, Holidays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.