retiredmartin

February 2025. Genoa.

You’ll have to excuse this post, a little worse for wear after a night on the beer in Turin and now watching Mariah Carey introduce the Winter Olympics. Don’t the Italians have any singers ?

It’s a dozen years since I was last in Genoa, marvelling at the 17th century palaces along Via Balbi, and completely missing the African buzz of Via de Pre,

Genoa hardly gets any tourists, bar the cruise boat daytrippers who head for the aquarium and the calamari takeaway, who miss one of the world’s great streets,

Opposite the University, Via Balbi houses the Royal Palace Museum,

with its hall of mirrors,

and exhibition on St George, patron saint of Engerland, and the dragon.

I’m very much Team Dragon.

Via Balbi leads to the first of a dozen marvellous churches,

the Basilica of the Annunciation of the Vastato most notable for its dolls house,

but once you leave the Basilica the best thing you can do is get lost in the tiny streets of the Old Town,

like Chris Cross in Arthur’s Theme.