Getting to Genova

We had high hopes…

We were all assembled at 8:15. Maybe, just maybe, we could beat the traffic and get out before gridlock set in in Florence; but there was a mix-up between luggage shuttle buses (our big touring bus isn’t allowed down Florence’s delicate streets, so we always have to rendezvous outside the Carrefour Express about five minutes away, and it was 9:10 before we actually got under way.

 The day started out bright and fine, and we admired the Tuscan countryside as we rolled on down the Autostrada. But dark clouds loomed on the horizon – quite literally – and by the time we arrived at Sestri Levante, a small town in Liguria, it was raining. Not exactly pissing down, but enough to dissuade us from admiring the town in anything more than a perfunctory manner. After a brief retail interlude for Italian clothing, we stopped at a trattoria and had our first seafood of our trip, as we are now by the sea! Spaghetti di mare was fresh and excellent, and Nicola had ravioli.

Our next stop towards Genova was at San Marguerita, where we were also expecting to take a ferry to Portofino. The ferry operator had called us whilst we were en route to let us know that ferry operations had been cancelled for the day because of the weather, so we went instead to find a local church which was excessively decorated inside, in the catholic style; and followed that with hot chocolate, again in the Italian style – a thick, creamy custard-like concoction topped with whipped cream.

San Maguerita on a rainy day

We arrived at the Bristol Palace at around 4:00pm, and were soon ensconced in our room. The palace is 5-star establishment, with such features as “light” (difficult to find at our previous hotel), and of course fully functioning plumbing, walk-in shower, robes, slippers, all that mullarkey. We’re staying here for three nights.

Once unpacked we went out to explore the local area. There’s a walking tour tomorrow, so full details then, but we walked past a lot of big old buildings, commenting “there’s a thing”, and we’ll find out more about them in the morning. We checked out some restaurants and decided on one, but like most of the restaurants here it didn’t open until 7:00pm. No matter, we found the Soho Restaurant and Lounge Bar, and settled in there for some cocktails – pink spritz for Nicola, and, finally, a Negroni for me. We’ve been out and so busy of an evening that we haven’t really had time to stop for cocktails – it’s been wine wine wine all the way – so this was the first chance we’d had. It was goooood.