Best. Aquarium. Ever.

The Monday after my parents left and the day after I day tripped Como I day tripped Genova with my friend Sarah, who had found out about this awesome aquarium in the city. We got to Genova around 11, and as soon as we stepped out of the station I felt like I was back in Miami. Palm things everywhere, sea-side views, a hint of Hispanic influence… I loved it.

We grabbed a map from the tourist office and headed off to find the aquarium. We came upon it pretty quickly (Genova, despite being the capitol of Liguria, is not a very big city). We paid the 18 Euro (!!) entrance fee, and definitely got our money’s worth. One of the first tanks had manatees:

So it was like walking to class past the Business School building, when the manatees take their leisurely swim up the canals. And everyone stops to take pictures on their phones and upload them to facebook to make their friends who don’t have manatees on their campuses jealous.

We also saw some piranha:

They just floated there, waiting to strike. It was eerie

We also saw some penguins,

Which move REAL fast underwater

Chameleons,

At an aquarium…

Anemone

Baby Sharks

Dolphins! (the only animal besides humans that has sex for fun)

Jellyfish,

And tons of other majestic sea creatures who I took pictures of but am not posting because the lighting in aquariums is atrocious and I can’t hold my camera steady.

We spent around 2 hours in the aquarium, and I definitely could have spent more. It was amazing. But we wanted to see the rest of the city and to get some legit Genovese cuisine, so we headed out in search of a restaurant. The restaurant we found was a little out of the way (good, less touristy) and had some amazing pasta.

I got some really delicious pasta in a pesto sauce (Ligurian/Genovese specialty), unfortunately I can’t remember the name of the pasta

And Sarah got Gnocchi in a red sauce/pesto combo. They were both FANTASTIC. And only 5 euro apiece!

After lunch we headed out to wander around Genova some more. Of course, neither of us had done serious research before going so we weren’t really sure what to do in Genova for the day. Our main goal was to see the aquarium, and it really, truly amazingly worked out!! So we took our maps out and went to the sights they had listed. The duomo (which I didn’t get any good pictures of, unfortunately), the Palazzo Ducale (where the Dukes of Genova used to live):

And which had a few art exhibits going on. We wanted to check one of them out, with Monet and Manet paintings of the Mediterranean, but it would have cost another 15 euro. Too much sticker shock after the 18 euro we spent at the aquarium.

So we kept walking around, and ended up hanging out at Piazza de Ferrari (the main piazza) for a bit (it was right behind the Palazzo Ducale):

And then walked down Via Garibaldi, a street lined with Renaissance Palaces:

At the end of the street we were back at the Central Station, but still had an hourish till our train. We checked our maps and saw that there was a garden up on a hill overlooking the city behind the station, so we trekked up there to take it all in.

Sad we didn’t get to visit this fortress

Right outside central station there’s a statue dedicated to Genova’s most famous resident, Cristoforo Colombo:

Tryina get artistic

We spent a bit more time there just enjoying Genova, and a Brazilian guy came up to me and tried to ask me for directions to Bari (as in the capital of Puglia, on the opposite side of Italy, aka the Southeast coast and not the northwest coast.) in Italian, because I “have Italian eyes”. His words verbatim. I told him it was an 8 hour train ride away and we had a very confused conversation in Italian/English and we eventually got it sorted that I’m actually American and that I was kinda guessing as to how far he was from Bari. I wished him good luck and Sarah and I headed in to the station to catch our train back to Milan.  We watched most of Up on the way back and it was great. We still need to finish watching it, Sarah, if you’re reading this.