Friday, 17 May 2019. We moor alongside the dock in Savona, Italy. Excursions are available for Genoa, where we have been before, Turin and Portofino (where we hope to go later in the year). We have never been to Savona so we opt for a look around on foot.
The harbour elongates and narrows into what could almost be a river, but it's not. At the end the harbour does a dog's leg bend to a marina for small boats.
The walk into the city takes us past several Africans selling cheap goods, mainly blankets, all of whom are happy to see us walk past their colleagues, convinced that they will be able to persuade us to buy.
A swing bridge divides the harbour from the marina, affording a pedestrian shortcut to the city. Passengers happily ignore the warning klaxons and red lights to walk across, only starting to panic and run for safety as the barriers at each end start to close prior to swinging...
We crossed without need for running (happen as well...) and set off towards the castle that we can see beyond the marina. We pass some bell towers and equally narrow buildings.
The castle was built by the Genoese in 1452 to keep the population cowed after their conquest of Savona. From 1820 to 1903 it served as a military prison.
The space in front of the castle was raised from the road and afforded us this view of the marina. We walked towards the right and descended some steps doing a full circuit of the marina which meant we had to re-cross the swinging bridge, which of course opened again just as we got to it... There is a museum dedicated to Apple computing and technology here. I'm not a fan of i-equipment so will just make the following observation. There is just the one Apple museum here. I now invite you to count the windows...
We crossed the bridge once it had swung back into place and wandered up an arcaded shopping street, where Miss Franny went looking for fridge magnets. We bumped into Eric and Jean from Edinburgh and Bob and Anne from Glasgow who were also on the ship and who we had met on the first night. Bob was what I'd call irrepressible, always impishly cheerful and with a joke never far away. We bumped into them several times during the cruise and our holiday was made all the more enjoyable because of them.
We returned to the marina and found a small cafe to sit outside of with our favourite Italian beverage, a latte machiatto. This is like the British version of a latte, but without the froth which to my mind adds nothing but fresh air to fill your cup. The temperature was around 17 degrees centigrade, an improvement by around 5 degrees on what we had left behind in England, but we noticed all the locals were wearing jackets and in some cases heavy coats and we were being looked at as though we were slightly deranged in just t-shirts and summer thickness trousers. We don't take coats on holidays to the Med. We may, however, just slightly regret that tomorrow...
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