The tour we had signed up for was called "The Fabulous Genoese Republic" and from the title and description we assumed that meant a lot of history. Genoa has a fabulous history, after all. Instead, Laura, our guide, spent the first two-thirds of the tour talking about art.
We were in Florence the day before. We had seen some of the greatest art in the world's history. Genoa's museums have some nice pieces, but after Florence it really wasn't what we were interested in.
Finally, in the last third of the program, we got to the town hall and she started giving us some interesting information. First, the Doge of Genoa, who was elected, spent all but five days a year holed up in the Ducal palace (now the town hall) because it was too dangerous for him to leave. Second, the Ducal Palace has many other items of the time of the Republic, but no period furniture. Why? Because the Doges had to provide their own.
But the most interesting part of Genoese history relates to how Genoa's fortunes always had a boom or bust cycle. They would order huge palazzos, but not finish them. This justifies the significant use of trompe l'oeil in their buildings. For example, although the coved ceilings are real in this picture, from the Palazzo Russo, or Red Palace, on Garibaldi Street, the main street of old Genoa, everything else is painted on the walls.
Those bricks in the arch? Paint. The arch itself? Paint.
I also loved the lions in front of the Genoese cathedral, San Lorenzo, even though they are a modern invention after the buildings in front were cleared to make a piazza in the nineteenth century.
This boom and bust cycle also was responsible for coining a word that has entered nearly every language on the planet: bankruptcy. Apparently, in this square
bankers used to set up tables, and one when one of them went bust, he had to physically break the table to demonstrate that he was no longer fit to participate in the banker's profession. He would cry out, "Bank broke", which in the Genoese dialect sounded like "Bank rupt." And thus, this is the birthplace of bankruptcy.
The word appears in nearly every language, yet it derives from this little space.
Laura left us right after the square, in front of this other trompe l'oeil building.
We immediately headed back to this lovely bakery that had simply superb foccaccia and some good sesame bread as well, all for under five Euros for both of us. We then wandered around the narrow streets.
The streets are so narrow that the garbage is collected in trucks like this:
Unfortunately, at 1pm, everything started to close. And we were confused about when the ship was leaving, 7:00 pm, as it said on the materials we'd been given, or 4:00 pm, which is what it said when we disembarked. As a result, when I went out shopping later, finding a huge supermarket at the ferry port next to the cruise port, I left my purchases at the store because they only had 2 checkout lines open during Il Reposo (the equivalent of siesta) and there were about half a dozen people in line ahead of me with huge shopping carts.
All I ended up buying was a cappuccino with ciocollata from a vending machine. It was very good, and my last coffee in Italy, and cost all of 40 cents. European cents, so maybe 55 cents US, but that's still pretty good.
The grocery store had an interesting innovation. The hand carts, the ones we in America would carry in our hands, were instead set up to work like rolling luggage. They looked very practical and easy to use. I'd think they'd catch on if only because the lack of weight you have on your arm would encourage you to buy more. I know there are times when I've debated adding something to the cart and didn't because it would either be too heavy or I'd have to shlep back to the front of the store to get a real cart. We'll see if they ever make it across the pond.
There was a pretty sunset, which we saw from the deck (we did in fact leave a little after 7).
Dinner was okay for once, and we ate with a couple who were Jehovah's Witnesses. They didn't try to witness to us.
We benched licht instead.
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