Chris & Kelly's Travel Adventures

Please forgive the amount of photo's in today's post, so much to share.

After breakfast at our hotel, we headed out on foot to a church I've not seen on any tourist show, blog or book (but I'm sure I've overlooked quite. a bit)...but instead spotted it on google maps while searching for other things.  Today's adventure really makes the point that there are hidden treasures everywhere in this country.  We walked up an alley lined with tiny shops ranging from bakeries, little produce market stalls and what nots.  These alley's are quite dim as they are lined with very high buildings.  We came around a corner and in middle of this flea market alley of shops sat this church. This 1st set of photo's is of Basilica of St. Syrus.  Many of these churches are very difficult to photograph because they are huge, but also because there are many side chapels.  

Fresh cherries to go with our lunch!

From Basilica of St. Syrus we headed to Via Garibaldi.  A street in Genoa famous for the amount of palaces along this short stretch of road.  What we found was that most of the palaces had been bought by banks, but kept a entry room or a courtyard intact for historical purposes.  The next 3 pictures are examples of this. 

This next church is St. Lorenzo Cathedral.  This church has an incredible amount of stained glass windows...much to Chris's delight.  The lead photo at the top of today's post is over the front doors.  This cathedral was very strict in its dress code of no knees, no shoulders and we saw many people turned away.  Ironically Chris noted that many of the sculptures & paintings within this cathedral were of nudes!

Lunch today consisted of local dishes we collected on our walk.  Ham sandwich on Foccacia bread, fresh cherries, and paper cones filled with fresh local seafood of calamari, sardines and "vegetables" (although delicious, we could not find a single vegetable in the fried dough).

Below is a lamp post with an ingenius design to keep pidgeons from landing and pooping on everything...little pidgeon skewers!

Tonight we say goodbye to Genoa and splurged by eating next to a fountain in Piazza di Ferrari.  Take note of the plate at the top of the photo...Ligurian Black Pig w/Figs!  OH. MY. GOD.  so good