This is the gorge which marks the end of France and the beginning of Italy our first new country in 7 months.
Meaning it was time to lower the tricolor and raise the Italian courtesy flag.
Ali was drooling over this little beauty we passed.
The swell set in and so we decided to only go as far as this town Imperia instead of rolling around for another four or five hours, it looked pretty from the sea and we managed to find the town pontoon which we weren't charged for so a bonus all round really.
As it was our first day in Italy the girls felt the need to try out the famous Italian ice cream and it looks like they fairly enjoyed it, well the portion they actually managed to get into their mouths......
Imperia is full of old buildings, we hadn't read anything about it so I couldn't tell you what they were but a very nice old Italian town all the same! There were loads of alleys and paths to keep the girls amused and even a play park, a bonus after the lack of them in French territory!
The next day we set off with a weather forecast for isolated thunderstorms, the skies were clear and there was a slight breeze so we decided to go for it. Within half an hour the breeze had died, the swell increased and the heavens opened, we had the bimini up but we both got entirely soaked.
We got into Loano at about 5pm, thoroughly wet but happy to be out of the swell. We had been told we may get a cheap/free berth here but it was forty euros for the night which seemed a bit steep considering most of the marina was still a building site and we had o walk through diggers and mud to get to the town.
We went for a walk around town, it is more modern than Imperia but still with very pretty painted buildings and the standard quota of churches. We went for a pizza as we felt we deserved it after our soaking and I am glad to say that the standard of waiter has picked up dramatically on crossing the border, our one was almost as yummy as the pizza!
The next day Ali bought some nice big fresh mackerel from this bloke, he seems to be very happy so Ali was probably completely ripped off!
We did get a good breeze and sailed the whole way to Genoa. Ali and the girls decided it was time to replace the fender socks, they are always very enthusiastic when helping Ali on boat tasks, I only wish they would tackle the tidying of their cabin with such enthusiasm!
Genoa
We got into Genoa harbour and I began phoning around all the marinas, the guide book has them priced in bands of 1-5 (1 cheap, 5 no way for us!) but the one in the centre of town which was rated as a 5 turned out to be cheaper than the one on the outskirts so we headed for there. A Dutch couple we had met the night before in the pizzeria had told us to go to the town pontoon past all the fishing boats, we looked and couldn't see anything that looked especially inviting and as it was a bit windy we decided to have another look on foot in the morning. We did and the place they told us about is now occupied by a submarine! It is an exhibit for the maritime museum and so no free berths in Genoa. It was a bit of a manky holeanyway and I wouldn't have wanted to handle the ropes for the mooring lines that would have risen from that rancid corner of the harbour.
A fancy figure head on one of the big yachts.
This galleon is moored in the harbour, it was apparently used in the Roman Polanski film 'Pirates' but I haven't seen that one so can't verify it. Alisha was a little surprised that the figure head of King Triton had legs which doesn't match with King Triton in the Disney Mermaid film whilst Kaylee was just highly amused that she could see 'his bum and his willy.' Oh dear!
Some street art at night.
This crane like contraption raises a capsule up high so you can get a good view of the docks, we didn't go for it as it didn't look that high to warrant the entry fee.
The first whole day we were in Genoa it was a thundery rainy sort of a day again and we went out armed with umbrellas which were well used and we still got a bit wet.
Going up through the old town Kaylee and I spotted our first town rat having a bit of baguette for his breakfast. It struck us as it does in all of these big cities how areas just streets apart can vary so much in levels of affluence and up keep. We were wondering if we had gone the wrong way entirely as we were walking past poor people sleeping in doorways and grimy streets but no it was the actually the way to our intended goal the Palazzo Reale. The girls had looked through the leaflet of the city, seen the hall of mirrors thinking it must be a real princesses castle and so that had to be our first port of call.
You aren't allowed to take pictures inside so there are only a few from outside below. I did wonder whether it was to protect the hundreds of years old paintings from the flashes or so that you couldn't reproduce any evidence that the whole place was a little grubby and run down. The few rooms that they had restored were pretty amazing but the rest was all a little bit dowdy with years of grime on top. It was obvious it had been an amazingly opulent palace in its day though, the girls loved seeing the kings bedroom but wondered why there was no bath in the bathroom!
The royal carriage.
The outside of the palazzo and the gardens below the pond had lots of gold fish so that kept Kaylee amused for a while.
It was raining so hard when we left the palazzo we sprinted across the street for some panini's since we hadn't had a real Italian panini yet. What a choice there was in the cafe, panini's foccacias all with a huge range of fillings so the girls went for..... ham and cheese!
Later that day when it had dried up a bit we did one of the city walks starting down at the docks and the Palazzo de San Giorgio or the palace of St George and here is a large mural of he himself slaying the dragon.
The Cathedral de San Lorenzo
The girls actually managed to get Ali to buy them ballons for once and were thoroughly delighted although I don't think all the people they accidentally whacked with the balloons were quite so happy about it!
There were so many squares with impressive buildings that it was nearly too much!
Porta dei Vacca part of the old city walls still standing from 1155
The girls wanted to give this guy money to see if he would move but we had to explain that this one really was just a model.....
Christopher Columubus's House! Well there is apparently a bit of a dispute going on about where he was born but any Genoan will tell you it was DEFINITELY Genoa!
One of the last things we did in Genoa that day was to get the girls a long overdue haircut.
All clean after the shampoo.
Kaylee found the whole thing quite amusing.
The newly shorn sheep.
We spent one more day in Genoa, we went to the maritime museum which was well worth a look even though it isn't finished yet. Kaylee had wanted to go on the submarine but it was still being prepared for viewing. Inside there are four floors of artifacts, including lifesize boats you can walk around on, a small boat with a simulator you can try to steer in different types of weather and lots more. A lot of the explanation boards had information in Englis too which was nice as we have wandered around a lot of museums now wishing we knew just what was going on! At the top floor was a new display calll 'Al America' we were all issued with passports and documents for emigrating to America on an old steam ship. This bit sadly was all in Italian, it would have been so good if we knew what the computerised passport control officers etc were saying to us when we 'gave' them our papaers for checking. The whole area is done up like a real old steam boat and it did transport you back in time. The passport we had been issued with were real peoples from the great emigration era and at the end you could look along a wall and find the life story of 'your' person. I think mine died quite early from what I could make out. No photos of this day as we forgot the camera! Then it was just a quick shop run o stock up and get going to an anchorage 15 miles down the coast. On the way back to the boat we met Dennis from 'Graceful' again they had just arived as we were leaving. Which is just typical of yachting, you never do quite meet up with people again or you see them nearly every where you go!
Our summary of Genoa - great paninis, pesto, excellent old town to walk around in and if you are into art galleries and palaces this is the place to be, a bit grubby but not too bad.
That's it for noo, we are in Trapani Sicily at the moment, having waited out yet another day of winds in the 30 -40 knots region, the only difference is that they are now warm winds of 30 - 40 knots! Hopefully they will die down overnight and we can continue East tomorrow.
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