Genoa
On Friday evening, 07 October 2016, we start our vacation. It is after a stressful week for both of us. Michael was on the road the entire week only getting back late morning from Poland. In the afternoon we prepare the last missing things, get everything into our Bulli and after dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant around the corner we hit the road. We don't drive very far as we decided to take the night train. It allows us to get a good night of sleep on our way from Vienna to Feldkirch and it reduces the overall stress at the beginning of the vacation as well as the kilometers on our Bulli. From Feldkich it is only around 450 km to Genoa. We don't have much traffic and arrive early afternoon at the harbor. Far too early as the gates only open at 3 pm and boarding is not before 6.30 pm. Means we have time to explore the area a little bit.
Beautiful view of the harbor in the front and Genoa in the back.
Some big ships stop here to pick up passengers.
This is the more historical part of the harbor.
Michael enjoying the view.
Some interesting bubble in the harbor.
Olbia - signs to our ferry across to Sardinia.
We take Moby lines with the ferry called Moby Otta.
They all have some figures from cartoons painted on the ship.
The cruise ships are still in the harbor.
One of them is leaving now.
Waiting for boarding to start,
9 - 11
<
>
We've never been in Genoa before nor at the harbor. As it is a sunny day we decide to drive a couple of kilometers to the Porto Antico, the historical part of the harbor. We walk along the various shops, restaurants, one of the museums and even come across the "Bio-domestico". This is a small market where local producers sell organic products. Some also offer snacks and local organic craft beer. We are hungry and decide to go for a organic cheese burger with fries and a beer. Tastes really good!
Around 4 pm we are back at the ferry to go through the check-in process. As expected we are one of the first ones. Still around two hours to go until we can board the ferry. Moby Otta is the name of the ferry and it is a really big one. We haven't been on such a big one for a very long time. While we are waiting many more cars arrive and in the end the ferry is pretty full. What we didn't realize is that Switzerland has school holidays. The majority of passengers are Swiss families with their kids. We also notice that there is an unusually high number of VW camping vans. Most of them are much newer compared to ours. However, seems Sardinia is still very popular for those campers. Ours is of course the oldest and nicest one among all of them. ;-)
Finally we can board, get into our room, drink another beer and after a quick shower go to bed early. Sardinia here we come!
