Continuing with our road trip in Italy, after Turin, the next stop is Genoa (Genova in Italian) … if you missed the start of our road trip, click here to join us on this epic road trip.
We drove from Turin, the capital of Piemonte, to Genoa, the capital of Liguria, on the A7 motorway. It took us about two and a half hours to cover the distance of 170 km (106 miles). Living in landlocked Switzerland at the time, we were looking forward to see the Mediterranean Sea.
First, we headed to our hotel to drop off our luggage. The hotel was located in the Old Harbour area (Porto Antico in Italian) below the elevated road (Strada Sopraelevata). I(Chris) had carefully studied in advance the exit we had to take to get into the busy local streets from A7, using Google Streetview. We had to take the third exit counting from the left.
Our hotel is situated on one of the piers jutting out into the busy harbour. The guest car park beneath the hotel was full and it was almost impossible to back out while a stream of cars were trying to do the same.
It took us almost 30 minutes waiting and circling while dodging tourists to find a seemingly safe parking spot not far from the hotel. We were a bit concerned leaving our car with a Swiss license plate in an unsupervised public parking lot in a gritty part of the city.
Moored right next to our hotel is this pirate ship – Galeone Neptune. It is a full-size replica of a 17th-century Spanish galleon built in 1985 for Roman Polanski’s film “Pirates”. The film was a total flop and the late Roger Ebert said in a review:
There hasn’t been a pirate movie in a long time, and after Roman Polanski’s “Pirates,” there may not be another one for a very long time.
At the time, the Neptune, was hailed as the most expensive movie “prop”. Besides the steel hull of the ship and a diesel-powered motor, the galleon actually had fully functioning sails and rigging. She was intricately carved and painted to perfectly resemble a Spanish galleon, complete with a giant Neptune figurehead. It is a testament to Genova’s experience in building and maintaining this kind of boat. The ship is now a permanent tourist attraction on the waterfront.
After check-in, we wandered towards Porto Antico which offers many diversions and options for food. In the opposite direction on the waterfront is the cruise ship terminal and Martime Museum.
Crowds of people, couples with dogs, multigenerational families with strollers, were trooping up and down the waterfront. We suspected that many of them were day-trippers from cruise ships.
There were long lines waiting to enter the biggest aquarium in Italy – Acquario di Genova which was built in 1992 celebrating 500 years since the Genovese sailor Christopher Columbus discovered the new world.
For sightseeing, Porto Antico offers a Ferris wheel and Il Bigo, a spiky structure that supports a panoramic lift.
For a long time, the port had been separated from the old city center, and the elevated highway built in the 20th century made the disconnect worse. In 1992, to celebrate Columbus’s legacy, the famous architect Renzo Piano (a native of Genoa) took on a project to integrate the city center and the port which had been rejuvenated and become an attraction in its own right.
Biosfera, a spherical dome designed in 2001 by Renzo Piano showcases tropical plants and animals.
We took a spin on the Ferris wheel and had a magnificent view of the city and its busy port (better view than Il Bigo since the Ferris wheel went higher). We saw facades of buildings not just on the waterfront but also of those further inland. What we appreciated from this view is the fact that Genova has been built on a slope from the port up to the hills.
Il Bigo, also a Renzo Piano design is a symbol of Porto Antico. It evokes the shape of old cranes unloading goods from a ship. A circular cabin takes passengers up 40 meters and then lowers them; disappointingly we don’t think the crane can make any other movement, like pivoting or swinging.
We had casuals meals at Eataly. We ate the traditional Ligurian pasta – trofie with pesto, after a long wait, at the nearby Cavour Modo21. If we had more time, we would have checked out the modern Maritime Museum (Galata Museo del Mare), the largest of its kind in Europe built in 2004, also on the water front alongside the Galata shipyards. On our agenda for Genova were the New Streets (Strade Nuove, an UNESCO World Heritage Site) and a boat trip to Portofino.
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We think this image generated by Google Earth shows the scale and layout of the port.
