Anniversary Vacation Notes 2017: Day 7: 2/22: Wednesday: Valletta, Malta

Malta. It’s that tiny smudge on your computer monitor just below Sicily. Of course, I wasn’t always so well versed in geography. If someone had handed me a map a few months ago and tasked me with finding Malta, I’d have begun the search in the Pacific, around Australia. Today, I can smugly say that, yes, I know exactly where it is. And once you’ve located Malta, finding Valetta is easy. 

The official language spoken by the people of Malta is Maltavion. It’s hard to describe and for someone as linguistically challenged as myself. It’s even harder to enunciate. To my ears it sounds like a mix of Greek and Italian or maybe German, with Arabic roots. Luckily for the many mono-lingual tourists who visit this island nation every year, Malta is, or once was, a member of the British Commonwealth.  I’m not exactly sure what it means to be a Commonwealth nation, but for Malta it does mean that most people speak English and that cars are driven on the wrong side of the road.

We’ve been on several cruises and have come to expect some bureaucratic delays when it comes to getting off a ship. In spite of the fact that cruise ships show up one after the other and contribute significantly to the local economy, most local customs officials act as though they’ve been caught unaware when one shows up. The end result is that a 9:00AM departure can sometimes be delayed by as much as 60 minutes. Or, as was the case in Rome, actually the port city of Civitavecchia, up to 6 hours. Valletta turned out to be the exception to the rule. We were able to get off the ship almost immediately after docking.  

Wearing only a short-sleeved shirt, and of course pants and shoes and such, we walked through the terminal gates, without the need to push through the usual gaggle of vendors and headed straight to the stairway that led to the city. A little-used optional elevator was available to the left of the stairs. In hindsight, a light jacket would have been a good idea for those cooler moments when we weren’t bathed in sunlight.  

Using an approach we had taken previously, with varying degrees of success, our excursion plan was no plan.  Naturally, that’s not entirely true. We had checked the ship’s planned excursions and even Googled Malta in order to get a feel for what might be a plausible six-hour adventure. Similar to the brilliant plan that we had concocted for Palermo, we opted to use the Hop-On/Hop-Off bus as our primary means of transportation. Luckily, the bus-operations on Malta seemed more straight-forward than they had been in Palermo. 

The ride was pleasant, and we passed by many places that, given the time, we would have liked to have stopped at and actually visited. These included such stops as the San Anton Garden, Balzan, Ta’Qali Crafts Village and the Aviation Museum. However, we had already decided that the one place we didn’t want to miss was the Silent City of Mdina. That would be our first stop.  

The city of Mdina was founded around 700 B.C., so nobody remembers what happened to the missing vowel. We were able to hop-off the bus right outside the old-city walls, very near to the main entrance.

Almost immediately we were descended upon by the guided-tour, horse-drawn carriage drivers. Initially it seemed that sitting in a small carriage behind the back-end of a horse might be a fun thing to do. However, at a cost of 35 Euros, we decided it would be just as well to walk. But the drivers were not so easily discouraged by our dismissal.

“30 Euros,” they asked?

“No, 20 Euros,” we said.

“That’s crazy,” they said.

“OK, then” and we continued toward the gate.

“Wait, wait,” a voice called to us. “20 Euros. We’ll do it.”

Having unexpectedly won our haggling war we climbed aboard our carriage and began our ride into the Silent City.

            I’m not exactly sure why it’s called the silent city. It may be because there is a convent within its walls. That probably keeps some of the revelers at bay. Mdina also happens to be, mostly, a no-car zone, although there are some exceptions, near the main gate, where certain vehicles may enter for special purposes. Elsewhere in the city the roads are too narrow for a four-wheel, motorized vehicle. Even our horse was feeling claustrophobic at times.

Inside the walls there is no uncovered earth on which to walk on. Every available surface, with the exception of a few box-gardens, is paved, I believe with limestone, but I may be mistaken. In any event the “limestone” hasn’t flaked away. Instead the centuries of foot traffic have polished the stones to an almost glass-like finish. I image this place would be slicker than ice in even the slightest rain.

The city of Mdina may have been founded around 700 B.C. but, as is typical, what stands today is the end result of centuries of construction and growth. There are influences of Phoenicians, Byzantines, Arabs, and of course, the Knights of Malta. The knight’s main contribution was the wall than envelopes the city. Apparently the knights were unable to sleep at night without a big wall.

Typical of the older cities in the Mediterranean region are the narrow and labyrinthine streets. Once again we were informed of the necessity to design a town that would be difficult for pirates to plunder and even more difficult for them to escape. It would seem that all reliable sources agree, Mediterranean pirates were a real problem in the 19^th century.

We thoroughly enjoyed our one-hour horse-drawn carriage tour, even if it did feel as though it ended 40 minutes short of an hour.  We learned more than a few fun facts and some useful ones too. Such as, what was where within the city walls and what did we want to re-visit. Once our driver had deposited us back to the point of origination we proceeded by foot back into the city.

From the standpoint of pointing out this landmark or that landmark, Mdina doesn’t really work. There is no Pieta, or Eiffel Tower. The city stands on its own, as a testament of itself. After all, it’s a place that has survived for over 24 centuries. And what makes that even more impressive is that Mdina is not a city in ruins. It is very much alive—or at least as alive as a small walled-in city with a convent can be. Within the walls there are two cathedrals, a convent and the bishop’s residence. There is also the usual assortment of souvenir shops, small restaurants, cafes, at least one tavern, and a five-star hotel—as rated by the carriage driver. There are also a handful of permanent or reasonably-permanent residents.

We entered the courtyard of the Bishop’s residence. From there you could enter St. Paul’s Cathedral or the cathedral museum. The cathedral and the museum each had their own entry fees, and neither allowed photographs. We did enter into the foyer of the cathedral museum, but that’s as far as we went. We may have been persuaded to surrender cash if either had allowed photographs.

Our decision not to enter St. Paul’s was validated just a few short meters where, adjacent to the convent, was the Church of the Annunciation. Admission was free AND they allowed photography.

Of course, we can’t know for sure but I suspect that the Church of the Annunciation was no less stunning than St. Paul’s may have been. As a bonus we have the photographs to make our case! There were a few signs posted inside the Church of the Annunciation indicating that there was ongoing restoration. It’s possible that the cathedral was structurally unsound and about to collapse on our heads, but we saw no signs of damage, nor any indication that any restoration work was underway.

Officially the Church of the Annunciation’s design is Baroque.  In a way, Baroque simply means gaudy, but the craftsmanship on display, from murals to statues is of such high quality that one is overwhelmed by the beauty and ignores the otherwise over-stuffed aspect. Prominent within Church of the Annunciation is a carved wooden frame, lightly gilded. Also a statue of Our Lade of Mt. Carmel is prominently displayed.

After being sufficiently awe-struck in the Church of the Annunciation we poked around a few gift shops, where a few significant purchases were made.  We stopped for lunch in a hidden café. I say hidden because in order to get there you walked through the front entryway of what appeared to be a centuries old forerunner to a New York City apartment building. The café occupied a courtyard that was open to the sky, as well as an interior space in the far side for the building. We had a fine lunch at the restaurant, although I’m not sure that restaurant is the correct term to use for this establishment. The menu was very limited: a few drink choices, bread, cheese, and eggs.  Perhaps there’s a different menu in the evening.

I can only hope that I am not making Mdina sound dull. We spent the majority of our Malta time in the Silent City.  While we realized that there is so much more to see and do in Malta, when you only have a few hours to spend, you need to make choices. I think it’s safe to say that we don’t regret a minute spent in Mdina, although it would have been nice to visit places like the Azure Window, a famous natural limestone formation that collapsed into the sea only days after we’d left.

Perhaps Mdina is known as the silent city because you fail to hear time passing by while you’re within its walls. By the time we boarded the bus, the better part of the day was behind us. We might possibly make one more stop and end with a mad-dash for the ship, or we could end our day in Malta in a more relaxed manner. We chose the latter. We found seats on the upper, open portion of the bus to take advantage of the warm sunshine on the ride back to the dock. Unlike the bus tour in Palermo this bus ride covered a wide swath of the island affording us a scenic, even if only a flyby, tour.

We arrived near enough to the dock and with enough time remaining to enjoy a leisurely walk along the sea-side roadway. There were a few diversions; a school bus converted into a souvenir shop was one. There were also shops devoted to local craftworks. Shopkeepers seem to be particularly proud of the Valletta Glass-Works.  The quality and variety of items on display, from figurines inside glass bubbles to multi-colored lamps, would seem to justify their pride.

And this is where we end our trip to Malta. We descended the stairs connecting Valletta to the dock. Tomorrow will be a day at sea as we head towards Barcelona! 

Anniversary Vacation Notes 2017: Day 6: 2/21 Tuesday: Palermo

Palermo is the capital city of Sicily; it is situated 14km south of the Gulf of Palermo and faces the north-west coast of the island.

So why did I copy directly from the ship’s brochure? Well, in terms of cruise-ship stops, I don’t believe that Palermo has figured out the best means for separating tourists from their dollars—not counting traditional means such as scams, kidnapping and ordinary muggings. But Palermo doesn't get all the blame. As tourist, I think we came up a little short in terms of making the absolute best of this opportunity.

The morning started out promising; sunny and warm, at least warm for February. At the very least it was finally legitimate short-sleeve shirt weather. With no in-depth research to guide us we decided to rely upon the generally trustworthy Hop-On/Hop-Off bus tour. We purchased our tickets at a tent set up on the dock, still inside the gates.  The woman selling tickets told us the pickup-point was one block away. She provided some general directions.

Obviously, by one-block she meant three, but that was OK. It was a pleasant day and a chance to wander around a bit in someplace new is always welcome.  We eventually found the bus and boarded, only to be told that we would have to get off at the first stop. It turned out that this bus was only a shuttle to the actual bus. Why you would pick up a bus load of people only to take them to a second bus remains beyond my comprehension.

The transfer was without difficulty and we boarded the real bus and the real beginning of our Hop-On/Hop-Off tour. We had the day in front of us and the sun was shining—although it did remain a little cool in the shade. We decided that our first hop-off would be at the Villa Giulla. This was a pedestrian gardens, or park, that were actually only slightly more than two blocks from a marina, which wasn’t too far from where our ship was docked.

The park was pleasant, palm trees and citrus fruit trees were prominent. The park was also decorated with statuary. Neptune was the only recognizable luminary immortalized in marble but there were lesser angels and saints, and a mortal or two, in various locations throughout the park.

In most places—every other place actually—the great thing about the Hop-On/Hop-Off services is that buses travel in a loop and you can just get on the next bus whenever you feel you’ve seen enough and wish to move on to another destination. That is how it works, usually.

According to the brochures, and re-affirmed by the ticket agent, and our driver, the buses should have been arriving in 30-minute intervals. Well, in Palermo, at least on this day, it seems that 30 minutes can sometimes mean 90 minutes.

You can moan and groan about your fate and complain the day away, or you can make use of the time and attempt a Plan “B”. We decided to visit a nearby botanical garden—at least the free parts. We considered going through the locked doors but an additional twenty Euros for each of us seemed a steep price to pay to view vegetation, so we opted out.

Eventually a bus did show up and we immediately hopped on. Perhaps we’d been roasting in the sun just a little too long, but none of the remaining Hop-Off sights looked particularly appealing. Most of the stops appeared to be tourist contrivances of dubious historical distinction. Palermo, has a great history hidden away somewhere. Perhaps they would prefer if it remained that way.

Still, I can’t say with any authority that our experience was indicative of all of Palermo. I can only refer to the stops along our route. The ride itself was pleasant and the history-lesson-for-tourist was fascinating. It seemed to me that Palermo has been a region that worshiped power regardless of intent.  Whether one was good or evil seemed incidental; it was the power that mattered.

We reached a point on our journey where we thought it would be more interesting to get off the bus and walk back to the ship. Our bus had been driving around in a tight loop, that never seemed to travel too far from our original location. The point where we decided to get of turned out to be barely more than a mile from where we had gotten on.

This was not a lost day, however. Walking the streets can be fun, and somewhat illuminating.  Before reaching our ship we ran through the usual gaggle of vendors. Many opted to sell Godfather memorabilia rather than Sicilian or Italian goods. We purchased a few blue T-shirts and a zip-up sweater. We chose one of the more obscure designs, a blue background with “Italia” written on the front. We decided not to purchase the much more plentiful design; the black products with the iconic image of Marlon Brando as The Godfather. (Interestingly, I saw no Michael Corleone merchandise on display.)

Palermo—what little we saw—was an unusual experience. It appeared to have been lost in time, existing somewhere between thriving and abandoned. There were plenty of construction sites but no clear sign of any actual activity. It sits on an island in the Mediterranean, yet seems dusty and arid. There is plenty of natural beauty. Whether native or not there are fruit trees such as orange trees. There are also palm trees—apparently the only reproducing palm trees in the Mediterranean.  The architecture is dominated with classic Roman design and decorated with statues that could serve equally well in either a museum or a mausoleum.

But I do not intend this entry to be a slam of Palermo. That wouldn’t be fair. Cruises are great, but there comes a time in every cruise where you just need a breather and too much, really does become too much. It could just be that Palermo fell on a day that demanded a rest.

It is possible that, at least on this day, our impression of Palermo suffered from two common cruise-ship curses. The aforementioned sensory overload suffered by the weary voyager, so much beauty so fast that my wow-glands have been stupefied.  The second cruise-line curse is just the impossibility of beginning to understand a new place in the six to ten hours provided by a cruise stop.

The rest of the evening was enjoyable, dinner with our table-mates, some empty-threats by the men to visit the clothing-optional pool, followed by an unusually early retirement for the evening.

Tomorrow brings Malta!

Anniversary Vacation Notes 2017: Day 5: 2/20 Monday: Rome

We started the day with an early-morning breakfast at our new favorite coffee shop in Genova—at the train station, before boarding the 6:30 AM train to Rome.

How fast does a fast train go? I don’t know exactly. But the trip from Genova to Rome took approximately 3 and one-half hours. Even without accounting for a couple of stops along the way, 2 or 3, that’s still an impressive 72 MPH. That may not be TGV speed, which allegedly zips along at 190mph, but it’s still pretty fast.

For the record: I’m not exactly sure why I’m using the Italian spelling for Genoa and the English for Roma, but I digress.

All city-spellings aside, calling this a trip to Rome is not really accurate.  Although we’d be passing through Rome, we’d pre-purchased tickets for a guided tour of the Vatican. That is where we would be spending most of our day.

Upon arriving in the Rome Terminus station our first order of business was to determine which metro line would take us to the Vatican. I’d like to say that as seasoned travelers, who’d been to Rome in the past, and therefore had theoretically already paid the idiot tax, that we would intuitively know which train led to the Vatican. That was not the case. We were clueless.

It was at that exact clueless moment that I overheard another pair of lost travelers discussing a similar issue. It was a mother and son. They’d been informed by someone I presumed to be knowledgeable that the “A” train was the one that would get you to the Vatican. Apparently, I really had already paid the idiot tax because I knew where the “A” train was! I offered them assistance and directed them to the “B” line. (No, I didn’t really do that; that would be cruel.)

My wife and I proceeded to make our own ticket purchase, went to our platform, boarded the train and we were on our way to Vatican City.

Getting off at the designated stop it was obvious that nothing would be obvious. There was no sign pointing to St. Peter’s Cathedral. The buildings rose up all around us, with no useful gaps. There was no hope of sighting any potentially helpful landmark.

But we were nothing if not lucky travelers. There were a couple of policemen nearby engaged in—I can’t say for sure what they were engaged in, it seemed to be a cross between an argument and a conversation. I don’t know which it was but they did seem to be having a good time.

“To the corner and left,” they said, or at least one of them did. Actually he only nodded in a general direction. But he did make sounds that seemed affirmative.

We went to the corner indicated and turned left and –nothing! But not really nothing. This is Rome and in Rome they have people, people with badges, whose job it is to spot people like us, uninformed tourist, and point us in the right direction.

We gave him the address where we were expecting to meet our tour group. He directed us, not so much to the Vatican but towards the place of the address, which turned out to be a pizza shop about two blocks away.

I think we can be forgiven for assuming that if this address was the meeting place then we must be gathering inside the pizza parlor, but that was not the case. Our rendezvous point was on exactly the address as stated, on the sidewalk. For future reference, meeting on a sidewalk is probably a sure sign that you are not being ripped off. Only scam artists would bother with the expense of an impressive store-front (That’s probably, not an entirely true statement, but it seemed to make sense when I wrote it.)

We, and apparently one other guy, had signed up for the English-speaking tour. He was a no-show. The tour group wound up just being the three of us: my wife, myself, and our guide, Elizabet.

After a short delay, waiting for the no-show, we started towards Vatican City, on foot. There was a little zigging and zagging involved getting there but it was only about two blocks away.

Soon we were out of Rome and standing on the grounds of Vatican City, an independent state in its own right. However, to get into the city we had to first wander past an impressive show of Italian military might. I like to image that they were there in order to contain the Swiss Guard and ward off a possible pontifical invasion of Italy, but the sad reality is that they appeared to be positioned in areas that would be vulnerable to the undesired intrusion of large motorized vehicles into the crowds.

OK, this is the part where I should start saying wondrous and glorious things about the Vatican museum, and I wouldn’t be wrong to do so. There were countless Roman copies of Greek statues as well as countless genuine examples of Roman statues inspired by Greek statues and possibly some Greek statues. Mosaic marble floors, elaborate ceilings—not just the Sistine Chapel—faux sculptures (grisaille for all you art students), tapestries, and more. We saw walls decorated in the Grotesque style, which we learned means inspired by the walls of the Christian grottos. There were works by Raphael and Michelangelo and basically any artist of note—except perhaps Picasso.

Nothing was spared from the excessive and one might say overwhelming ornamentation: floors, ceilings, doorways. Any normal person with even a minor appreciation of art is likely to experience a touch of art nirvana at the enormity and quality of the display. If you’re offended by the notion of any church accumulating great wealth then you might rightfully experience extreme nausea.

Which breed of observer am I? That’s hard to say. Obviously the self-aggrandizement of some of the popes ripped any spiritual aspect out of some of the artwork. Evidence that the artist themselves could sometimes devolve into childish behavior was also evident. Raphael liked to include portraits of himself, and his friends, in his artworks. Michelangelo seemed to prefer to indulge in unflattering depictions of his critics.  Yet, in spite of the sometime pettiness of the patrons and the artist, and the socialistic desires to redistribute the wealth there comes a point where art wins out. The depictions become more than drawings or statues and instead represent the intangible, the hidden hook that defines art.

Obviously we saw way too much to mention it all; there are entire books devoted to every nook within the Vatican, but I have to make some mention of the obvious. 

Let’s start with the Sistine Chapel.

As a former Catholic I suppose I should start out with a preventative, “Bless me father for I have sinned…” The sin: blasphemy, blasphemy-minor.

What? No, of course the Sistine Chapel is beautiful! Are you nuts? However, there is a qualifier. Michelangelo only did the roof, technically the ceiling, and the front wall. There are three other levels of murals in the Sistine Chapel and, to be kind, they are not Michelangelo.

The middle level featured the work of Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Cosimo Roselli. They told the story of Jesus on one wall, and Moses on the other. The fresco’s wrapped around the walls of the Sistine Chapel bringing both stories to a unified conclusion on the front wall of the chapel. However, Michelangelo felt that he needed that front-wall space in order to complete his work, so he painted over the endings of the life of Jesus and Moses.

On the lowest ring of the Sistine Chapel are painted curtains. It’d a damn fine job of fake curtain painting had they been done anyplace anywhere else. But here? To stand in comparison to that ceiling? It wasn’t fair.

So, yes, Michelangelo is to blame for the failings of the Sistine Chapel. Compared to what he did with the front wall and the ceiling the remainder of the Sistine Chapel looks like the kid stuff that you stick on the refrigerator door—and trust me, it would require some very talented kids, but still the disparity exists.

We were only allowed ten minutes in the chapel, which is the norm. We were implored to be quiet and respectful; this is more of a request than it once was as the Swiss Guard no longer impales violators. A prayer was said during our ten-minute observation period by the presiding clergy.

As previously mentioned we were part of a tour group (group of 2, but that still counts). I recommend this as the only way to go to the Vatican Museum as it gets you though the secret entrances (doors) that only tour-guides have access to.

Our next big-ticket stop was Michelangelo’s Pieta. There is no obvious indication of the damage done in 1979, although it does now sits behind a protective barrier. Carved from one piece of marble—blah, blah history lesson. Forget the history for the moment or that Michelangelo was just twenty-four when he carved the Pieta and was just beginning to flex his muscles. To see the Pieta in person is to experience living stone (marble). There’s blood coursing through those veins! Well there was, Jesus is actually depicted as dead. But the sorrow of his mother, though obviously drained, is very much alive.

There are subtle symbolisms carved into the masterpiece, none of which I was previously aware. Mary, the virgin mother, is indeed filled with a palatable sorrow, but her face is of someone younger than that of her son, Jesus.  And Jesus, himself, is not like most figures created in this era. He is not the typical Herculean figure, but he is weak, emaciated, and lifeless in his mother’s arms.

The clock stops for no one, even when you’re standing in the presence of greatness. We were running late, we’d hired a car to get us back to the mother (cruise) ship. We sent our regrets to Pope Francis, who I understood had prepared an impressive cheese dish for our lunch. That may be the only meeting that I’ll ever regret missing.

With some confusion we were eventually able to get back on board. Apparently the cruise ship had experienced some computer problems while we were in Rome and nobody had been able to disembark. They’d been stuck in port all day. We returned to our room and prepared for dinner at our newly assigned table.

I guess as punishment our previous dinner assignment was changed, still the assigned dinner table idea is nice. The dinner buffet is nice too, but you seldom talk with the other guests in the buffet. Assigned dinner seating encourages the on-board buddy system. Our new dinner companions were a career British military man, his wife a small museum curator (She was normal size; the museum is small.) A second British couple who ran their own hypnotherapy clinic. They were very engaging; I gave them my wallet before we left. The third couple at our table was a seemingly nice pair, but a little more secretive than the rest of us. I suspected a Mr. & Mrs. Smith type of thing, although likely retired.

Tomorrow we pull into Palermo, Sicily for a short stay--from around 10:00 AM to 6:30PM.

Anniversary Vacation Notes 2017: Day 4: 2/19 Sunday: Genova, Italy

A leisurely breakfast on board the MSC Splendida; a perfect way to start the day. We hadn’t signed up for any of the official excursions, so we were a low-priority departure, meaning that had we attempted an early departure we would have been placed at the back of the line.

We’d booked a hotel for the night and would not be rejoining the cruise until tomorrow afternoon, in Rome. So there would be no pressure to attempt to see all of Genova in the normally allotted 6 to 8 hours. 

So, instead of rushing through a meal and risking indigestion, we slowed down to enjoy our pick of pastries, eggs, assorted meats, coffee, juice, hot or cold cereal, fresh fruit and on and on. Although, come to think of it, I didn’t see any pancakes. However, just because you can eat everything doesn’t mean that you must. I enjoyed a relatively modest plate of scrambled eggs and a few assorted selections of sliced meat and cheese and coffee.

As it turned out disembarking turned out to be a little more complicated than we had anticipated. Because we wouldn’t be coming back on board when the ship departed a little extra bureaucratic shuffling was required. Immigration officials like to be kept informed of the status of the foreigners on board.

When we finally did step on Italian soil we were greeted, not by armed customs officials, but by a gauntlet of vendors selling everything from a single rose to $25 iPhone 9s. This was definitely buyer-beware country. But purchase we did, and I think we chose well: a pedal-powered electric-cart tour of the old city.

Our bicyclist/guide turned out to be very knowledgeable, friendly and more than fit enough to pedal two full-size adults around old Genova.  It was a great experience and we learned a lot including:

Genova had been bombed by the British in World War II and yet considered itself lucky. It seems that because the British had a centuries-old relationship with Genova they focused on bombing military targets rather than employing the flat-earth policy proposed by President Roosevelt.

Marco Polo once spent time in a Genova prison as a hostage. He had committed the crime of being born into a family willing, and wealthy enough, to pay a ransom.

Christopher Columbus hailed from Genova.  At about the time we was planning his first world tour, Genova was in the throes of an economic downturn. There were insufficient funds in the till to finance Columbus’s dream cruise. Luckily, the city enjoyed a good relationship with Spain, and that provided the Genova-born Columbus with an inside-track with the King for getting the financing he required.

Most revealing about the region may be the fact that they are still stinging from a military defeat, suffered at the hands of the Venetians, around 8 centuries ago.

As we traveled the narrow, winding and sometimes unpleasantly aromatic roadways, it quickly became obvious that one could easily get lost here. Apparently that had been the plan all along. The tale, similar variations which we’d heard in other similarly architected cities, was that the streets had been designed narrow and labyrinth-like in order to discourage pirates.  The lost and mostly single-file pirates would be easy pickings from the rooftops as they tried to find their way to some prosperous portion of the city.

Hidden in plain sight along these alley-ways were the prostitutes. By my estimate there was at least one such person every 20 to 30 meters. I found this interesting. The streets weren’t populated by horny sailors, as might have been the case at one time, but by tourist. These were mostly middle-age and older couples, with bulky cameras hanging around their necks. Who was the clientèle that the prostitutes hoped to attract? Was this merely advertising for potential in need of “fresh-air” strolls taken in the middle of the night? Maybe they weren’t even prostitutes, but actors; hired by the mayor’s office, to provide “atmosphere” for the tourist.

Whatever the case may have been we were informed that prostitution is illegal, though tolerated. As our guide put it, local people could not imagine these streets without the prostitutes.

And, as it turns out, prostitution can also mean so much more than just itchy genitals. In the middle of all this—life—we happened upon the church of Saint Maria Maddalene. The exterior of the church is unassuming, fitting right in with all of the other pirate-plundering structures. However, on the inside, proudly financed by prostitution, is a splendor, or gaudiness and excess if you prefer, that would never have been guessed at.  Although, you couldn't be faulted for thinking that any pirate worth his weight should have smelled the gold.

If this church exists as a penance for sin; well then I guess there’s still a lot of sinning that needs to be done.

The church of Saint Maria Maddalene wasn’t the last stop on the bicycle cart tour. It wasn’t even the most impressive stop.  But, as all good things do, our guided tour had to end. And, as if by some grand design, it did end, right outside the doors to our hotel for the evening: the Grand Hotel Savoia.

I don’t collect a check from Expedia, so I don’t want to spend too much time describing a hotel, but I will say its five-star rating was well-deserved.

After checking in, we decided to follow the desk-clerk’s recommendation and set out on foot to visit the Basilica Saint Annunziata del Vastato.

The basilica had been seriously damaged during World War II. It is currently held together with an integrated steel framework that, in contrast to the massiveness of the basilica looks like chicken-wire. The exact age of the basilica is difficult to determine as its history goes back to at least the 1200’s but its constructions moved forward in a series of starts and stops that were seperated by decades. The primary structure, as it exists today, appears to be attributable to a takeover by the Franciscan order.

Beautiful churches aside, we continued our foot-tour (that sounds so much more sophisticated than simply saying walking) up, or down, the Via Balbi in the general direction of our hotel.

Now, I’m generally not one to put much stock in the intersession of God or angels or any such thing but…  Likely lured by evil, or a very small sign indicating a pizzeria at the other end, my wife attempted to steer us down a rather dark and winding alley.  As we strongly considered this deviation from the well-traveled path an elderly white-haired woman, dressed in black from head to toe, potentially everybody’s Italian grandmother, appeared from nowhere.

                “No,” she intoned. She further emphasized the point by wagging her finger and pointing to the alleyway. “No!”

“Grazia,” we replied.

I, for one, was not inclined to ignore the warnings of an elderly Italian woman who had so emphatically warned a couple of ignorant tourist about the dangers of a particular route.  She disappeared into a very sparse crowd as mysteriously as she had appeared. We continued on our original path.

Stopping at a small café outside of the train station we enjoyed an unusual, and unusually good chicken, tomato, and brie sandwich. What we had thought, when ordering, would be cups of hot chocolate turned out to be cups of a warm thick pudding-like drink topped with wip crème. Delicioso!

As a chaser we then went to the train station to confirm our morning tickets to Rome.

In trying to keep this under several thousand words there is much that I have left out. I only touched upon Marco Polo’s unpleasant stay in Genoa—in the prison that would someday become the principal bank of Spain and as previously mentioned provide Spain incentive for financing that scoundrel Columbus.  (I wonder if in a round-about-way, Marco Polo didn’t finance Columbus?) There was the Cathedral de San Lorenzo, the black and white cathedral, ten centuries in the making and still under construction. It comes complete with a miracle: an unexploded bomb in the center of the church, which is either a testament to God, or an indictment of British bomb-making.  And I failed to mention the horrendous error by city planners that unintentionally channeled mountain breezes to literally blow vessels out to sea.  And so much more.

We were able to absorb a lot of detail, history and atmosphere in our barely 24 hours in Genova, but 24 hours is not near enough time to learn about a city. It will take weeks of re-playing these events in our minds just to process what—comparatively—little we have seen. Luckily a picture is worth a thousand words, and while these blogs barely rise above that mark, there are more than a few pictures to serve as reminders.

However, I can’t just post pictures and surrender the last word. I’d like to mention that we capped our stay in Genoa with one of the finest Genovese dinners ever served to man, but that’d be a lie. In spite of having spent a decently active day—yes, I’m keeping my pedometer going and five-plus miles of walking per day has been the norm—neither of us were hungry enough to justify a full dinner, as had been our original plan. Seeing that there was a McDonalds only 5 minutes away… No, we didn’t travel all these miles to eat at McDonalds. We opted for something local, as in really local, not tourist-trap local. We took a chance.  Sometimes you win big, and sometimes not so much.  But this is Genova, in Italy!  And just as surely as you could once purchase indulgences to wipe away sins, you can still purchase redemption for bad food choices. We found a place, just a few paces down the road, where we were able to wash away the earlier unpleasantness with a gelato that, apparently, can only be served in Italy.

Tomorrow we rise early. We’re taking the fast-train to Rome where we’ll visit the Vatican and, if we’re not too busy, dine with the Pope.