After a whirlwind trip around Europe, our plan for the last week was to take it easy around Genova. Nick had seen that the Giro d Italia was to be finishing a stage in Savona, a city that sits outside of Genova, so we had planned to catch a train out there, but the night before realized that the race actually came right through Genova! With camera in hand we made our way down near the port and with about ten minutes to spare claimed our spot and watched as the cyclist and their support vehicles quickly sped past us! It was awesome to see, and Nick got some really great shots.
When we returned from our long trip a group of five students and their professor from The College of Charleston were here at the villa. Which meant that Cristina was here occasionally cooking lunch for them. So lucky for us, we got a couple last delicious meals and I am so thankful. I will really miss her cooking!
On Friday evening Luca invited us to see a gallery of an artist that the has grown fond of that draws dogs. Dogs?!?! Heck yeah, I’m there. It was really great being able to meet the artist and having a private tour of his work. Luca took along his dog Otto for the artist to study and photograph. I look forward to seeing the outcome of Otto’s photoshoot 🙂
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| Luca’s dog Otto |
After viewing the gallery of his work, and those works of some of Luca’s other friends (can I just say he has some pretty talented friends!), we made our way back to San Nicola where we enjoyed one last meal at Maniman with Anna, Luca and Giudi.
On Wednesday after lounging around the villa, except for the occasional run to the wine store, and for granita at Don Paulo, we were ready to get out. When mom was here, her and I visited Camogli, but I somehow managed to forget to stamp our ticket on the way back and no one ever checked, so Nick and I had essentially a free ticket back from there. So we decided late morning to take the train out, grab some lunch and enjoy one last day on the seaside. We had a delicious lunch at The Creperie, however it started raining while we were eating. Luckily, this didn’t last long and the sun soon came out, so after a delicious desert crepe with chocolate, gelato and peaches we planted ourselves on Camolgi’s stone beach, I finished the book I was reading and we just tried to soak it all in!
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| Camogli |
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| Gelato in Camogli |
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| Rain clouds over Camogli |
Thursday during the afternoon we met Anna and Luca at their office and made our way over to The Japanese Museum, which Luca tells us is the second largest in Europe. They had a new exhibit and he had not yet seen it. Prior to visiting the museum we enjoyed nice refreshing drinks at Mangini, where I had my first ever Italian iced tea!
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| Italian iced tea at Mangini |
Everyone else enjoyed caffe shakarato, specially crafted by the really nice bartender.
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| Italian version of frappachino? |
We then made our way through one of Genova’s few public gardens up to the museum. If I had one criticism about this city it would be their lack of green space, but then again with the amazing garden that we have at the villa there is no need to ever seek out another place in town.
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| Genova’s public gardens, overlooking Piazza Corvetto |
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| Looking down upon Piazza Corvetto |
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| Luca, Anna and Nick climb their way through the gardens to the museum |
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| One last selfie in Genova |
We enjoyed our afternoon with Anna and Luca, they are the sweetest individuals and I hope one day to be able to return to Genova and visit them, if not maybe to be able to meet up with them in The States, Chicago maybe?!?!?
Later that evening we enjoyed a final meal at Osvaldo in Boccadasee, it seemed appropriate since this little seaside village is where all our amazing dinner adventures with Anna and Luca first began. They picked us up at the villa and we then stopped in Casteletto to pick up Giudi. We had a wonderful evening full of laughs, reminiscing about our time together and Giudi reminding me how terrible my last group project of my Master’s was (guess I must have complained a lot about it 😉 It was the perfect way to end our nine months in Italy and a dinner that I will never forget!
These three individuals have been such a wonderful blessing to our lives and they enriched our experience here. I am so glad that we returned to Osvaldo for our last meal, though we had been here many times during our time in Genova, the last time it was not as good as usual. However, on our final night, in the words of Nick Ault, it was on point!
We shared two delicious bottles of vino bianco, fried seafood mix, an octopus appetizer, I had an amazing pasta dish which was veggie filled ravioli covered in a walnut sauce, and of course I finished the night off with a chocolate tort!
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| Osvaldo |
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| Delicious pasta |
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| My final chocolate torta in Italy |
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| Wonderful friends |
Our flight out of Genova was not until 6 pm, so with our bags packed and last minute weight checks, we enjoyed our last bites of Italian bread with olive oil and finished off a bottle of vino while sitting in the garden just trying to enjoy our very last minutes in Genova.
Lucia called us a taxi and we left Genova in the same fashion that we arrived, zipping through the corners seeing death flash before our eyes! Safely at the airport we knew we were early, as we anticipated some bumps during check in, knowing we would have to pay for our extra bags.
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| I hope it’s not overweight! |
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What we did not anticipate was that we wouldn’t even have seats on the flight! Seriously?!?!? Yes, I know I booked these flights ten months ago, but does it mean they are deleted if they are that far out?!?! Thankfully, we had a very kind, yet frustrated American women check us in. After a bunch of banging the keyboard, multiple phone calls, and lots of swearing under her breathe, oh and an hour going by while all this happened, we were finally on our way. Here’s praying that all our luggage shows up in Charlotte!
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| Arrivederci Genova – the same to you! |
ciao Megan!!!!! 😉 giudi
done! finally I found the way to write something to you, feel so old…but so proud!
keep writing about your life!
baci baci