Genoa Buildings

I was going to do a post on Genoa buildings and interiors--the museums and palazzos and churches we toured--but that would have taken 100 or more pix. Personally, princely/ducal/royal interiors look pretty much all the same to me: lots of gold, velvet, colors of red, blue, green, curvy furniture, marble floors, ceilings of gods/apotheoses/battles, putti, etc. So here, lest we go to three or four blog posts on Genoa buildings and interiors, I am going to stick to the exteriors pretty much. For the record, we followed a Michelin walking tour as well as we could, seeing the Palazzo Reale, the Palazzo Principe, the Porto Antico, the Galleria di Palazzo Spinola, and the palazzos of the Strada Nuova. Plus Cristoforo Colombo's (alleged) house. Plus some other things.

I could have done an entire post on door ways

Church, important because

Paganini did his first concert here (see art post)

Typical of the beautiful buildings

Old building

Harbor

Locked entrance to an intriguing 12th centuury
Romanesque

24/7 plenary indulgences; in perpetuity

We couldn't find the way in...

Centro

Old walls, gate

Cloister moved here to make way for some new (18th century) construction

Columbus' house; even the TI referred to it as "the so-called
Columbus house"

Bourse of yesteryear

The minute you pass Menton, trompe-l'oeil becomes standard

City hall courtyard

Palazzo Rossi

In the royal palace, I think

Church of the Annunciation

Baroque, but gorgeous

Almost reminiscent of St. Paul's Without the Walls

Hall of Mirrors in the royal palace; OK, not Versailles

Royal throne

Water feature outside the royal palace

A Day In Genoa: Food

Our 2013 visit to Genoa consisted of being lost driving across the big city, foolishly hoping that the "coast road" would carry us right through Italy's largest port and to the other side. It worked out, but not without some confused and anxious moments: Genoa was not designed for camping-cars, even small ones. We drove on to La Spezia and our visit to the Sink Terror. This time, Vicki had done a bit more reading on Genoa and found a campground right on the train line into town (with a short bus connection), and we decided we would spend a day in the city, taking in its arts and architecture, food and drink. Two days would have been better, even confining oneself to the old city. Genoa is big, old, rich, and interesting in most all the ways we like. I took 300+ pix in that one day and am now confronted with reducing that number to something manageable. I think I'll do it thematically, food, art, buildings, scenes, etc. Most important, of course, food...

Yes!

In the pesto section of the museum gift shoppe

Disappointingly under-flavored, we thought

Moving right along: a beautifully interesting fine food store

Family rule: never ever pass up a 200+ year old patisserie

Pasticceria Liquoeria Mariscotti di Cavo; 1780

Best almond cookies ever. Period.

More delights

At the harbor, making sesame candy cookies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySqec8WrEQQ

A sophisticated food scene

A fruit shoppe in an old palaccio with a marble entry-way

The first place we stopped for lunch was closing for renovation and had run out
of the items we wanted; so we moved on to another place, Pintori, Vicki's
choosing, which, we noticed later, was actually a Michelin-listed restaurant

Her pesto pasta

Pintori specializes in Sardinian cuisine, so I figured, hey, why not the sardines,
of which I had a whole school...in the wonderful lemon/wine sauce they do in
Liguria; got my daily allotment of calcium in all the little bones, too

Down to the subterranean WC

Past a most interesting artists's studio (the waiter? owner?)

Chipotle goes Italian

Hopefully without the salmonella