The skinniest streets & the biggest Port I've seen - Genoa, we like you!

As soon as we arrived in Italy, I knew something about the Italian lifestyle - they don't rush. Yes, while waiting at Domodossola station for our connection to Milan where we'd get yet another connection to Genoa, the world seemed to literally slow down. Even people without fifty minutes to spare like us, weren't running for their trains. I mean, even the digital signs telling us which train had just arrived at the platform so that we could work out if it was ours or not weren't in any hurry. It's lovely.

We arrived into Genoa ten minutes late and aimlessly, slowly wandered to the taxi rank because there was no way we were walking up that hill to our hostel having been travelling and eaten nothing all day. With that in mind, as soon as we'd put our bags in our rooms and showered, we headed straight out for some pizza and a refreshing beer (I didn't realise how thirsty I was).

Being slightly disorientated in our new place and due to the fact that the streets were all narrow with a dodgy feel to them at first, we decided to go on a walking tour to get our bearings. This helped wonders, the lady doing the talking was lovely and we saw so much in two hours. There's also an added bonus to all of these typical tourist tours, more trivia under our belts for future pub quizzes - result! For example, did you know that we stole our flag from Genoa? Or that a World War 2 bomb fell into one of the churches, didn't explode and remains there today (still unexploded).

We followed this tour a little later with a boat trip around the massive Port. This started unexpectedly with a minor incident. We were sitting happily having acquired very good seats and were more than ready to depart so were pleased when we heard the engine start up. This was shortly followed by a crash and directions to leave the boat. Whether it was a rubbish driver or poor boat condition, we'd crashed into the metal railings which had all come apart. Oops. However, it wasn't so bad as in our hour wait for the next boat we enjoyed a delicious ice-cream with the view of the harbour.

Having had such a busy and long day in the heat on our first day, we enjoyed a bottle of wine at the hostel and decided to have a beach day the following day, just a train ride out. It was beautiful, relaxing and we felt yet again that we were bossing this Interrail lark and had officially DONE Genoa.

Things I've learnt in Genoa:
-about the buzz that you fills you when you realise your connection is on the same platform you got off at
-the world slows down in Italy
-their wine and beer is cheap
-the streets in the old part of the city were all built that way, they're not dodgy
-Pizza in Italy really is as good as they say
-everywhere in Italy smells of roll ups
-you never feel as drunk as you are but also don't get the hangover you probably deserve
-'My Sister's Keeper' is a book only to be read when you're in a really happy place (it's so much sadder than the film)
-travelling on a budget is the best way to lose weight!