Tourists!

Saturday, having snagged Kelley on a corner in Milan, we determined to go, once again, to Cinque Terre after a fine night’s sleep. The site of several previous visits, by now, we’d know better, one would think. CT is beautiful — As no doubt you all have seen in photos, or have walked, five ancient fishing villages are each strung atop its cliff, the higgily piggily buildings clinging onto one another in random Mediterranean colors of peach, terracotta, orange,yellow and rose, then tumbled down each hill to the sea below. Perfect for boats going out.

It is custom to walk between each, but currently impossible due to unstable ground. Imitating lemmings, we rush forward with the hordes to do something less athletic — a pilgrimage of shoportunities and bedlam. We avoided one, but passaged between the others, by a train of course, the only other way between towns. Apparently, every one of the millions of visiters denied the trip during covid came last weekend, bringing their dogs, multiple dogs, leashed and well-behaved, but everywhere. We walked our steps, enjoyed the views, and came home aching and eager to sleep.

Sunday we got up so late we were all embarrassed at our laying about, ( I think the travel finally caught up with us too ) but finally we refreshed sufficiently to go downtown and catch some seaside sun. We are only some 5 minutes from the town’s frontage. This place, Chiavari, is more like a vacation town for Italians, as we don’t hear nearly as much English and German as we did the day before. People walk — they walk in families, in sweet couples hand in hand, singly, and in groups along the waterfront. Beaches here are pebbly things, with only a few providing sand, but as always, people will contionue to worship in their own way. It felt so good to turn the corner on the time changes, and feel rested.

Today, Monday, while we await cousins John and Elaine, who are driving in from Rome after their flight, we went to Genoa (Genova), getting off the train close enough to the subway to the center of town in a few minutes, and see that they’ve now added new equipment and facilities by Hitachi, whose name is everywhere. ( I wonder if they could come and work on our laughable mass transit?) When Judy first came to Italy, all she knew was that the family was called “Genoese.” The whole long story of finding family wound up in several hamlets somewhat near each other, like being in the same large county, with different unique villages.

The old heart of Genoa has a magnificent water fountain and is located in the center of all things ancient here. This old town intrigues me. One side is the 12th-century bank buildings, one side has the Carlo Felice Opera House, another the entrance to the Palazzo Ducale. The doors are probably 20 feet tall, and even the stone floor shows foot-sunk signs of the millions of steps across that threshold. It was good to be Duke! The rooms are unbelievable in scale and decoration, and now house entire departments of the archives of the city, as well as several major art shows, one of which we saw.

Escher – imagine if you will, holding an exhibit in multiple rooms of the scale I mentioned, with gigantic decorative murals above and on the ceiling, with 12-foot marble statuary of the Virgin Mother holding her child presiding over another wall. All that, and the modern Escher in the same place. Bent my mind. I have a photo or two on Facebook of the fun. He was quite amazing, and if I had any talent, I’d be inspired, but…

Out another direction from that fountain is the magnificent Cathedral of San Lorenzo, also built in an age of significant doors, when people of the church were buried beneath the floors, but apparently supposed to be looking up at the total glory to God artwork above their heads. The tile-to-the-underworld-openers are still there, and I wondered if I could get to see, but, no. A 2 foot US bomb sits upright in one corner — it never exploded during WW2, although we’re now grateful for the dud, which ruined the extraordinary ceiling as it came through, but not the cathedral itself.

Above both are the insignia of Genoa ( also known as Zena ) a red cross on a white background. Genoa even has/had its own dialect.

The boat show was ended, but we went to the harbor just the same, hoping for some sights. Boat show not there. Genova has two harbors- a boat-holding one, that apparently is parking giant cruise ships during covid, among other types, and a military one, for the obvious occasional war event. The boat show probably spread the participants all across the riviera. But we missed it wherever it was.

The rain began, the skies opened up, and the rain that Denver wishes it could have, has done its best to deter us from further play. Not to be discouraged too soon, we did go shopping for food, and as always it is fun to figure out the thirty or so styles of pasta, the various kinds of things one can shop for in another country, and why or why don’t they ever have salt or sugar-free? And really, – how do other people survive without peanut/almond butter? sigh.

We’ve been checking on the restaurants of our host up in the mountains, and as it turns out, his restaurant is a casualty of Covid. We were hoping for John’s birthday dinner there, but no. Our next stretch was a place famous for their amazing fungi and frito-misto. They are going to be closed. Our next favorite is U Pellegrin -a place that is #1 in mountain-top restaurants, so we’re stoked!

Lastly, masks are required everywhere, but when we ordered our train tickets back this afternoon, the machine was set to only give out tickets with vaccine certificates, or “Green passports”, and wanted each of our personal names and details to even buy a ticket. They are taking this seriously, and we’re glad, although ( whine of self-centeredness ) my ears hurt from all the constant elastic pull. Thanks for reading this far!