Vacay 2015--la Superba

For six out of seven mornings of our cruise, when Hubby Tony and I woke up our ship was docked in a different port.  This day it was Genoa, one of the two cities where we'd decided not to book an excursion.  After rolling out of bed we got ready leisurely, then we gathered all the things we'd need for the day and went to the dining room instead of the buffet for breakfast. 

When we left the ship there were taxi drivers and tour operators lined up just outside the port building door asking if we'd like to use their services.  However, when we declined, one of the tour salespeople was nice enough to give us a map of the city.  Much of it was written in Italian, though, so we relied heavily on chance and gut feeling to get us through the day.

It was about a half-mile walk from the dock to the city.   According to Wikipedia, Genoa has been nicknamed la Superba ("the Proud one"), but the area immediately around the port was industrial-looking and didn't live up to the nickname.  Once we reached and crossed the first major street we started passing the omnipresent shops that sold touristy trinkets.  We made a stop at a produce market where we bought some fruit to eat later, and kept going.  We missed the street Tony thought would take us to the city center, but instead of turning around we decided to just take the next one and see what happened.

What happened was a couple of hours wandering through the city center and rubbernecking as we passed by the beautiful buildings

Couldn't figure out the name of this building, but isn't it awesome?

and fountains

Piazza De Ferrari Fountain

that gave the city its nickname.

After several hours of exploring we were hot, tired, and hungry, and couldn't agree on the quickest way back to the ship.  When I saw a friendly-looking woman I decided to take matters into my own hands and went up to her holding my map.  I quickly determined she spoke no English, but by a little pantomiming (pointing to the ground in front of me and saying 'here' then pointing to the map and shrugging my shoulders) she got the idea that we wanted to know where we were and pointed us in the right direction.

It was another 20 minutes before we got back to the ship.  The air conditioning felt so good!

Chocolate and pistachio dessert at dinner