Day 3 - What Else Happened in Genoa
By Arnd
Check-in at the Hotel Palazzo Grillo was handled by a young, Asian-looking lady. What had annoyed me was that every hotel I'd picked in the last few days had a car park listed as a feature on booking.com.
Car park at the hotel ...
Today, as in the days before, the car park was far from the hotel — specifically at the Aquarium of Genoa. According to Google the walk is theoretically doable in 6 minutes. But Genoa feels like it's made of narrow, tall alleyways. They look straight. But since we kept ending up at our starting point, they clearly aren't.
A detour into racism
So I told the young lady, slightly irritated, that you could hardly call this a car park at the hotel. She replied that it was a partner car park of the hotel. And therefore it belonged to it. I answered her: if the hotel were in Beijing. And the car park in Shanghai. Would she still think it was justified to pretend the car park belonged to the hotel? She grinned at me and said: "I'm not Chinese." Good heavens — it dawned on me that I had just become an everyday racist. Clearly my subconscious had only chosen those Chinese cities because the person in front of me looked Chinese to me. Embarrassing...
The most educated mother-in-law of all had recommended the centro storico of Genoa for sightseeing. We only made it to just behind the Cathedral of Genoa. Too tempting were the deckchairs of Café Douce on Piazza Giacomo Matteotti. A whole row with a view of the Palazzo Ducale, where a Monet exhibition was still running for a few more days.
Apparently the next event was already being prepared, because 8 men were busy loudly gesticulating about how they could manoeuvre this huge grey wooden box into the Palazzo.
German pessimism vs. Italian collective spirit
The available equipment consisted of a massive hydraulic crane and an aerial platform that allowed the crane operator to steer the crane from a good vantage point. The goal of the whole operation was a large terrace door above the column-lined entrance.
As a born sceptic, I was immediately convinced that this would never work. The fastening of the wooden box was improvised at best. And the opening in the Palazzo was obviously far too small for the massive box. I started crafting my personal evacuation plan... And then the inevitable happened: the crane operator swung the giant box in an elegant half-parabola, dead on target. And it fitted perfectly. Case closed...
Restaurant in Genoa
That evening Josh had the difficult duty of finding a restaurant with the prerequisites: "good" and "outdoor seating". It didn't quite work out — we walked, as we had all day in Genoa, through the narrow alleyways. Which somehow kept repeating themselves. By chance we ended up at "il cavaturaccioli".
In Italy there's a rather stoic distinction between bar and restaurant. So we were sceptical about how the food would be. But: superb! Good, simple cuisine. Perfectly presented!
Fresh Caprese for Josh; I had — completely crazy from an Italian perspective — Ravioli in butter and sage as "primo" and a wonderfully seasoned Amatriciana as "secondo piatto". Before that there were little appetiser bites with pizza bread or pasta. Service was exceptionally friendly — in short: we were very satisfied!
Back at the hotel we first inspected the rooms. The large library with impressive ceiling heights. And pictures of the maisonette suite with stairs up to the bed. That's also where the small charming bathroom with old ceiling beams is.
Price-wise we were again at 120–180 euros, which I found absolutely fair and reasonable.
The next morning we spontaneously tried the breakfast. It normally costs 12 euros extra, but as a small sales gesture it was reduced to 10 euros during our stay. Because of our spontaneous decision we could only choose one of the 5 different breakfasts. Maybe it was produced externally? No idea. Was it good? Hmm... let's put it this way: the seat on the rooftop terrace justifies the price considerably more than the quality of the breakfast. On the other hand: is Italy famous for its breakfast? A clear and emphatic NO — so for 10 euros it was perfectly fine.
But we're slowly looking forward to a really good breakfast, a really good croissant, maybe even still warm? And it's getting closer, because today we're heading off to France!