And the weather changed here in Genoa

Gert flew in yesterday afternoon, via Milano and a train, so I had some time in the morning and caught a bus back out to Boccadasse because ... huge winds were blowing and the sea was storming in the beautiful little fishing village I had first seen on a stunningly sunny and calm autumn day.

Once again I took over 100 photographs however this time I was covered in sea spray and so battered by the winds that I came home exhausted and chilled. The camera fared far better, as I cleaned it continuously with a special damp cloth and kept it under my coat.

I wasn't the only one taking photographs out there and when I'm back in Belgium, you'll probably see more of this superbly wild day on the coast of Genova.

Richard Wagner writes about Genoa

For various days I lived in real ecstasy. Unable to follow a set plan to visit the masterpieces in town, I gave myself up to the enjoyment of that new environment in what might be called a musical guise. I have never seen anything like this Genoa! It is something indescribably beautiful, grandiose, characteristic … I really would not know how to start explaining the impression that all this has had and is continuing to have on me …

Richard Wagner in a letter to Minna Wagner, 1853.

Boccadasse, Italy

I began today processing people photographs, working at the kitchen table until it was time to set out in search of my morning cappuchino and the bus to Boccadesse … that old fishing village I walked to on Sunday.

Do you know ... it turns out that there is this bus that leaves from just below the apartment and stops near the top of the stairs that lead down to the beach at Boccadasse … so much simpler than walking and being lost in the heat of a Genovese autumn day.

I would write ’but the bus is less interesting’ except for the fact that I met the most interesting woman as I returned via the bus and we talked all the way back to the city. She was lovely. So even the buses are interesting here.

I arrived at the beach in time to watch a rain storm making its way down from the hills. I was up at the lookout for maybe an hour and it was stunning. I really don’t know how I will leave this beautiful city.

So there are photographs from today … as a creature who adores Nature I found it simple to take more than 100 images of light changes playing over the sea and then one or two other subjects I am passionate about. You see, I found the house I would like to live in …

Ciao from Genova in Italy.


October Rain, Genoa

I photographed the rain as it came down from the hills this morning. I experienced a couple of small downpours on my return to the city. I was busy all day. I had wanted to do some work for the NGO, then there was the big walk looking for a money machine I had misplaced in my memory which is kind of fun when it involves fabulous streets like Via Garibaldi. I bought some supplies and chose tonight's fresh ravioli and there was a mad last minute dash for a new book.

And then came the rain ...

I have lived all over the South Island of New Zealand ... Dunedin, Cromwell, Blenheim and Te Anau ... such was that life as a teacher's wife.

Te Anau is located in the mountains, in the south-west of the lower South Island and it is torrential rain country. Lots of millimetres in a very short time.

Istanbul didn't offer me that so often and I was living a 5th and a 2nd floor life. There was no thunderous drumming of rain on the roof. It was different there. 14-million-people-in-a-crowded-city different perhaps.

Belgium doesn't often specialise in the tin-thrumming downpours that I loved back home in New Zealand however ... it seems that Genova does.

So tonight I ran out the door to pick up some work from the internet cafe. It wasn't raining, I forgot my umbrella and then, almost here, the heavens opened.

I'm trapped at the moment, only until I embrace the idea of being soaked in 3 seconds on the way home ... despite being saved by one of the umbrella-selling guys with a mini-5euro umbrella. I think this rain will destroy it in seconds.

I love it though.

Eating pizza alone in Genoa

As those who know me will confirm, I have moments of social brilliance and ease and then there are those other moments, when Mr Bean looks like the twin I was seperated from at birth. And he's just an actor …

So last night I decided I would brave the pizzeria across the alleyway, without Paola's mum there with her Italiano. I started confidently, having woken from a nap imagining I could do anything, even without language.

Ordering the Napoli pizza went just fine but the red wine was where I went so wrong. There is a pizza called rosso-something and so began the unravelling of Di as a relatively intelligent adult.

I gave my order by pointing at the menu, as per Simon's book of how to point in any language. Then the lovely old man, another customer, opened the fridge for me … the wine, beer and etc are stored in it and most adult customers are deemed intelligent enough to get their own drink. OhdearGod!

I knew their music had woken me from my nap, their opening shop music, and I know this pizzaria rocks through the night with its own in-crowd. I knew I had to hurry, feeling as linguistically deficient as I do in these days alone in Genoa

I chose a table where I could look out into the alleyway, a mistake because it also put me in prime position in the dining room.  I didn't realise until the place started filling and then, sigh, then they gave me a plastic knife and fork, which makes sense because of the thin pizza crust but did real Genovese use them?

Pizza etiquette...
I smsed Gert holding in that nervous, oh-my-god-I-don't-have-any-idea laughter. I opted to switch between the plastic utensils and eating with my hands because, as luck would have it, I was the first one served and I couldn't check out what anyone else was doing. There was me, the lone foreigner, quite possibly breaking 50 of the 99 how-to-eat-pizza-with-dignity rules.

The pizza … oh the Napoli pizza is so good here. Not too many anchovies, just right amount of cheese and tomato. The red wine is fine chilled, the music is good and loud, and the surroundings are purely delicious.

All this insecurity is just about me feeling very much like a child of the South Pacific in this ancient city.

The good news … well, when I bit into that terrifyingly hard piece of pizza topping, I was A. able to remove it from my mouth relatively discretely and B. identify the crunch.  Just like last time, the end of that plastic fork prong had snapped off when I bit it.  What's that about?  I've never bitten my forks  before.

Oh, and my leftovers fitted into the rubbish container without incident. If you knew the amount of worry I had invested in whether or not I could smoothly drop my leftovers and their cardboard base into that bag, I do believe you would applaud about now.

And the clown bows …

Today, in Genoa, Italy

This morning, I set out on a 6km walk to Boccadasse and like the adventurers of old, I was working without a map. Unfortunately navigation isn't a natural talent of mine...

To avoid mocking by any Genovese reading this, I won't write of the route I took but I was lost for quite sometime however the journey was surely as much a part of the destination.

You see, I found this as I was wandering along Via XX Settembre. The light was just so and this photograph was the result.

The Little Fiat, Genoa

I uploaded some photographs and had no idea which order to blog them in but here goes ... let's begin with the cute little Fiat that we rented from Hertz.

Paola drove us from our Milano landing into Genova, passing through some beautiful hills as we approached our destination, making me feel a little nostalgic for New Zealand.

But the car ... cute, isn't it.