Trip to Genoa

While we were on the train to go and visit the villages of Cinque Terre, our train went through a city that seemed to be very pretty, even if I saw it only for like 5 minutes (you can imagine how pretty it must be to make you want to come back specifically to visit it!). From what we saw there was the sea, which was really bright blue, a color that I really love, and there also were these house that are all tiny and all painted in a different color than the house next to it. While we were passing this by, I thought that I had to come back here to see more and explore this city. And that is what I did last October: I went on a day-trip to Genoa (Genova in Italian), on the west coast of Italy!

My expectations for this city were kind of high. From what I had seen while being on the train to Cinque Terre, Genoa looked like a very beautiful city. I was expecting to see the sea with beautiful shades of blue, and also more of the typical colorful houses. I was really excited to go back there!

The cheapest and fastest way for us to go there from Milan was by bus. It was only a two-hour drive and the round trip cost us between €20 and €25. We left around 9 in the morning and came back to Milan at about 10 in the evening.

On the way to get there we saw some beautiful landscapes: we drove through mountains where the trees were getting their autumn colors, which was gorgeous in the light of the morning.

I have to admit that we had not really prepared this trip beforehand so when we arrived there, we didn’t really know where to go first. We got off the bus in a place that was quite out of the city and far from the center, and we didn’t know how to get there. We could feel that we were close to the harbor and the sea, so we decided to walk towards them because we really wanted to get closer to the water. I think this is where things went wrong and it explains why we did not get an experience as good as we expected of Genoa.

After walking for a good hour in what felt like 40 degrees, we finally found a way to get closer to the sea. We were like thirsty dying because of the heat, and we had not planned to walk that much, at least not right after getting off the bus. The color of the water was gorgeous and really made us want to get in it, even though we did not. It was this bright blue that I remembered I had seen from the train a few weeks before, and I just love this color so much.

We walked a little along the seaside, sat on a bench to have a break and enjoyed the sun before deciding to go looking for a place to have lunch. That’s when things got even a little more complicated.

Since we didn’t really know how to get to the city center, we walked through streets in what we thought was the right direction. The streets were really noisy in this part of the city where there were so many cars and it was getting really warm because of walking in the sun. This part of the day was really not the best: we were hungry, thirsty and the noise was really annoying us.

After doing that for more than one hour we decided to just stop in a small bar, grab some sandwiches for lunch and ask the bar tenants how to get to the center. They were really nice to us and showed us the way to get there and what were the monuments and streets to see. At this point, I felt like the day wouldn't be so bad because at least now, we knew where to go, what to do and the most important things to see in the time we had left in Genoa.

After we finally arrived in the center, we could start and really visit the city. We started looking for the Duomo, and it didn’t take us a lot of time to find it. It has some beautiful colors on the façade on the interior is also really remarkable.

The great thing about the Duomo there is that it’s surrounded by pedestrian only streets with many shops and places where you can find food and snacks. We actually stopped to enjoy a frozen yogurt that we bought in a little shop right in front of the Duomo on the left. You can choose the flavor of the yogurt, different toppings and other things like fruits that you want to put inside. That part of the day kind of made up for all the hours we had spent walking under the sun and the heat.

As the day was coming to an end, we started walking back to the bus station. While we were going there we noticed that the sun was going down, and we stopped by the harbor to watch the sunset. There’s actually a platform that was made for people to be able to go further into the harbor and get a great view of the city, with some boats in front of it.

So, to sum up our trip, Genoa seems like a very beautiful city. I think if we had planned our trip better we could have enjoyed this place more than we actually did. The seaside is definitely really nice, and they also have a very popular giant aquarium there for people to visit. We didn't visit as the access was quite expensive and it is not what we came here to do, but the bar tenants advised us to visit it, so maybe if you're planning to visit Genoa you can add it to your list of things to do! But also prepare some money to pay your ticket.

I would definitely not recommend going there by bus as they stop quite out of the city and you have to cross some neighborhoods that are probably not the safest you walk in, especially at night like we had to do to get back to our bus.

So, as you might have guessed, my expectations were not really met. I think I got a bad impression and experience of Genoa that day and I think the city has more to offer and to appreciate. Maybe I will go back in the future to try to change that my mind about Genoa.

Photo gallery