Week 2 – Thursday July 8 – Genoa

I am writing this from the forward lounge on the Moby Ferry Freedom, which is powering us on our way to Bastia in Corsica. Since being told to put the handbrake on in the car, I have n't seen a solitary crew member, so I can only assume that there is someone on the bridge and that we're not running on autopilot, but that might be a wrong assumption. The ferry we are on is massive, our car is on the 3rd car deck – it will take over 700 cars apparently and there are 3 floors of cabins. Being 9am in the morning, we have not taken a cabin, but are sitting in the self-service restaurant, staring out over the bow of the boat, watching the sea and hoping to see Corsica appear in about 4 hours time.

Yesterday we spent walking around Genoa, which is a city with a “certain” charm, although it could also be described as dirty, crowded and run down. It was reminiscent of the historic quarter of Lisbon. The historic centre is a maze of tall buildings with narrow walkways between them. A wide street is about 15 feet wide, a narrow one is only about 4 feet wide. It's very easy to get lost in the maze of buildings, but even if you do, you're never very far from where you want to be. Anne and I went for a walk in the eveing and ended up getting lost until we found a street map, that showed us where we were. We appeared to be miles from the hotel as we were about 8 blocks from the hotel. In reality, we were no more than about 300 metres away, which indicates how small the blocks are. Despite the heat, it was very cool within the old quarter and we spent the morning wandering rounds the streets and piazzas.

We did a walk to the ferry terminal to make a change to our ticket and walked back along the harbour side. Beside the historic port was a group of Africans selling goods laid out on blankets – the usual stuff they sell just about every where – sunglasses and handbags were the main two items on sale. As we walked past them, they all, to a man, grabbed the 4 corners of their blankets, lifted their entire store and ran off into the car park. Looking off into the distance, we could see a Polizei car making its way slowly along the pedestrian mall on the wharf. As the police car disappeared off the wharf, the stalls were re-established and within 5 minutes, business was back to normal. 10 minutes later, the police car did another circuit and the whole thing was repeated. There was another couple of guys wandering round talking to tourists, so we watched them for a while, but couldn't figure out what they were doing. Charlie Chapman was also there as a human statue, so all in all it was an interesting place to sit and watch people for 15 minutes.

We returned to the same restaurant we had dined in the previous night, because the food was go good – one of the highlights of Genoa. What a difference a day makes – the previous day, the restaurateur had been the master of his domain, bossing the waitress around, watching the football on TV and polishing off a bottle of wine over the course of the evening. Tonight the waitress was different and boy did she run the show. Working on the premise that age-wise, there is probably little to distinguish a daughter from a second wife, it took us a while to work out what the relationship was here, but eventually settled on a stroppy daughter. The food was lovely again and it was good being able to enjoy the atmosphere without a football match going on in the background.