Italy trip - Genova


Hello, everybody,

And welcome to my very first travel post. 
I don't know exactly how to start, but I will give it a shot and start with the beggining :)
So, this summer we decided to go to Italy and I planned everything and I am happy to report that I did a great job :)
The plan was as follows:
  • Genova
  • Portofino
  • Cinque Terre
  • Florence
  • Tuscany
  • Rome
First of all, I did not manage to find a decent direct flight from Bucharest to Genova, which kinda sucks. But we had a very quick connection from Rome to Genova, immediately after we landed at Fiumicino airport.  
Why Genova? well, the city is very nice and it was the best option for accomodation and close to Portofino and Cinque Terre by train. 
So, we stayed in Genova for 4 nights and we had one day trips to Portofino and Cinque Terre. 
In a future post I will give more details about Porto and Cinque Terre, but today let's talk about Genova.

Accomodation: Nologo Hotel 

I am not sure if I should reccommend it or not.
On one hand - the area seemed safe, it was very close to the train station and also to the city center which is a very good thing and the room was quite big, but there are also some aspects that kinda bothered me.
The elevator was the tiniest elevator ever - 2 persons could barely fit in there. 
I hope the sheets were clean - I will never know for sure :)
The walls were very thin - in the last night there some drunk tourists kept us awake all night long. 
And there was a strange smell on the halls all the time - because of the cleaning solution they were using. 

What to do:

We visited the old port of course and walked all around the city center.
The areas are safe, although there are some shady streets with shady people and if you are not aware you can just walk in the middle of them. 
We almost said hello to a couple of prostitutes :))
In the old port there are a lot of Nigerian princes :) - stay away from them. They will just ask what time it is and then you are screwed :)

And if you are crazy about sunsets like I am, you need to climb to Castelletto - not a easy thing to do, but the view is totally worth it. The sunsets from the port are not bad either. 






What to eat:

Well, there are a lot of nice places. 
The one place we tried and we liked was Il Genovese. 
Since we are crazy about pesto, I tried the gnocchi al pesto and my husband tried the minestrone al pesto. We recommend both of them. 
Also if you are short of money, I totally recommend to go to a Carrefour and buy some pesto genovese sauce, bread and grana padano - the best sandwich I have ever eaten :)









Stay close, because next post will be amazing Portofino.

Long live the green!
Ionela

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