But Genoa is in the same (sort-of) (very) general area as Pisa, where neither of us has been before either, and Andrew is not one to be put off by a 90-minute detour.
It was a perfect departure from Venice: one final no. 1 vaporetto trip, disembarking at Piazzale Roma, finding our car still intact and loaded with our excess baggage on the 8th floor of the secure parking lot, and after three sunny days canal-side, a large thunder clap heralded the arrival of rain.
Our so-far reliable Sat-Nav told us we would be in Pisa about 1.30pm, but we didn’t know what the lunch options would be when we arrived, and the troops were restless (hungry restless, as opposed to the more-common bored, irritable, just-plain-annoying restless), so much so that, when we saw the signs advertising McDonalds a few kilometres ahead, we convinced them we should eat lunch there, much to no one’s delight. We joined the herds, lurked for a table, and ate quickly, then, still hungry, grabbed another cheeseburger and fries for the road that would take us the last few kilometres to the centre of Pisa.
The Sat-Nav assured us that it was just a few kilometres, and sure enough, only seconds after Andrew said he’d be happier when we were no longer in the middle of nowhere, Elle spotted a leaning tower... the Leaning Tower! This turned out to be just a few hundred metres the other side of the old city wall from the football stadium, where a Sunday afternoon match was about to start, and all roads seemed to lead to the game.
Despite this, we quickly “jagged” a free park in an area that looked to be popular with football fans, and quite close to the tower. The light drizzle reminded us of Melbourne, and street sellers had exchanged whatever it is they sell in dry weather here (fake designer bags?), for umbrellas.
The historic area, Piazza del Duomo or Piazza dei Miracoli (Field/Square of Miracles) is very impressive, being comprised of four key buildings (the Leaning Tower (or the more dramatic, Torre Pendente in Italian), Duomo, Baptistry and Camposanto) surrounded by perfectly-manicured (and fenced-off) grass.
The Leaning Tower is, of course, the star, and attracts the most attention, primarily in the form of the quintessential photo of a person holding up a hand to arrest its fall. We had a short visit inside the Duomo, but otherwise stayed outside. The queue to climb the tower only had about 50 people in it, but it looked quite slow moving, and with our day’s schedule, it was never really an option.
The drive from Pisa to Genoa was notable for the number of marble yards we saw, particularly around Carrara. On both sides of the road, over a five to ten kilometre stretch, we must have seen 15 to 20 yards, all with large numbers of huge rectangular prism shaped rocks (about three metre cubes). We thought fondly of our friend Trish, an architect, who would have had a field day looking for good off-cuts from these monsters.
Pretty much on schedule at 6pm, we pulled up in the street opposite the address of our B&B in Genoa, but the phone numbers weren’t working, and despite the name of the B&B being on a small sign on the street, finding it was very difficult. Eventually we found the name on a door buzzer board, about 30 metres up a steep poorly-surfaced driveway. First impressions were therefore not great, but as the old saying goes they can be misleading, as the next post will explain.
It is so lovely to read the blog and to remember my time in Italy. I loved Venice and we had the water coming up through the square, it was also raining when we were in Pizza and the men were trying to sell umbrellas even though they could see that we had them.
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