Day 9-Genoa Italy

Genoa, Italy

We decided last minute to schedule a tuk tuk ride through the city. I am so glad we did! Our driver was great and very knowledgeable. The tour focused on the old town, with it being a port town you can imagine it has a pretty colorful past.😬 It still has a red light district, which funded the Santa Maria Maddalena church (second church pictured, I am standing in front of). It boasts of 12 confessionals so you wouldn't have to talk to the same priest everyday. Our tour guide told us many times that they were stingy when building. To save money they painted some buildings 3 dimensional so they looked ornate. Like in the first building pictured. That building also has two fake windows. I guess they had a window tax. We noticed several buildings with fake windows. They had a strong army so they never really got attacked by pirates, but the way they laid out the streets was for protection. In the older pard of town the roads were very narrow and none of them are straight, they are all curved. He said if they were attacked the enemy would have to break up into small groups and they couldn't see what was coming. He also said it was where jeans and chocolate were invented. But they don't get credit for either. They are also famous for their pesto and focaccia, so we had some for lunch. We didn't love it. After the tour we explored Piazza De Ferrari, Porto Soprano (an entrance to the city), where they think Christopher Columbus was born, and Porto Antico. I had a huge headache so we went back to the boat and took a nap. The food on the ship is not great. We have only been to the dinning room twice, we usually go to the buffet. I should have know a lot of the food would be fish on a Mediterranean cruise.