A magical Meditteranean vacation - the Italy road trip COMPLETED About This Page:

[cubfancolleen]

Laurie, that's all so fascinating!! And Cheryl, you captured great pictures of the bubble rings!! That really looked like a great aquarium!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by lauriep

Here I am! Yes, your dolphin was probably sleeping, or the closest thing a marine mammal does to sleeping. It's really neatly worked out.... they sleep with half their brain at a time. You can tell which side is asleep because the eye on the opposite side will be closed. Half of the brain is awake, and tells them when they need to rise to the surface to breathe and also watches for predators. They alternate sides of the brain so the whole brain is hardly ever asleep at the same time. Sometimes they'll pair up, though, and one dolphin will sleep while the other nudges it to the surface periodically to breathe. Mothers do that with baby dolphins. Mother dolphins can't stop swimming for several weeks after their baby is born because if they stop swimming the baby, who is floating along on her slipstream, will sink. So they swim and sleep at the same time-- with half a brain! I think this is one of my favorite animal trivia facts! Dolphins are good at many things-- blowing bubbles included!

You see, I just knew you'd be able to help us out - and how! Absolutely fascinating stuff, I learn so much from you!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by cubfancolleen

Laurie, that's all so fascinating!! And Cheryl, you captured great pictures of the bubble rings!!

Thanks!

That really looked like a great aquarium!

It was excellent.

[chezp]

Saturday 19 July – part nine: our final dinner together

We headed out, and thankfully the sun was now behind clouds, but my goodness, it was still really hot!



We saw a very dodgy Mickey Mouse character – if you look carefully towards the right of this shot, you might be able to see them…



I didn’t want to get close up and have to pay for a photograph, as of course that’s what they wanted. We saw someone take a photo, then Mickey told them in both Italian and English to pay up – that was quite something!

We headed back to the hotel and back to the room for a break, although in truth, it wasn’t much of a break, as we needed to check everything would fit in two cases, which thankfully it did. One is overweight, so tomorrow, we may try and see if we can squeeze a bit more in the other one, which is slightly underweight, and also see what we can put in the hand luggage, as British Airways’ hand luggage allowance is very generous and we can both take a case and a backpack.

I also checked us in for our flight home and so that’s sorted. I can’t believe this wonderful adventure is almost over now…

We headed down to reception at around 7:30pm to meet up with Mari and Raleigh for our last dinner with them. Mari told us they already had a table, as they’d been there for an hour and a half, enjoying the view and having appetisers. It certainly was a lovely view – it was the same table as earlier, but now the sky was beautiful in the light of the setting sun.

As the evening wore on, I got lots more photos of the sky, which was just beautiful….



They bought us an amuse bouchee, which turned out to be an olive dish, so I gave Mar mine, as I do not like olives, and after one bite, he’d declared I wouldn’t enjoy this…



For appetiser, I got the linguini on eggplant puree, fresh thyme and ricotta cheese, with pistachio nuts. It sounds like an odd combination, and it didn’t exactly look appetising, but it was very nice:



Mark had the Italian cold cut selection with typical “panissa” from Genoa. We all tried the panissa, and none of us could fathom out what it was. I’ve since checked on Google, and it’s made from chickpea flour, which I would never have guessed in a million years. I thought it tasted of potato.



For entrée, I had the red shrimps and squid fried with crunchy vegetables and aioli sauce. When it turned up, again it wasn’t quite what I expected, but again, it was good.



Mark had the chicken breast with soy shoots and basmati rice…



When it came to dessert, we all really struggled to decide what we wanted, the choices were so good. In the end, we all opted for our own, with me going for the pina colada – coconut biscuit with pineapple icec ream, rhum water ice, and lime sauce and this was excellent.



Mark went for the walnut parfait with pure chocolate sauce.



We also decided to share a Bailey’s soufflé with dried fruits crunchy nougat. I have to say this was a bit of a disappointment to me. As Mark said, it tasted of coffee, which didn’t bother me, but he hates anything coffee, and it certainly didn’t have a true Baileys taste to it.



It was about this point that someone decided to smoke, and they were right at the other end of the terrace, but it reached us pretty quickly. None of us like smoking, so we headed inside, and we noticed the table next to us leave shortly afterwards as well. It annoys me so much. I know there’s nothing you can do about it outside, but when people are eating, I just don’t think it’s appropriate.

We headed inside to finish off our drinks, and got our server to do a photo of all of us:



A word about our service – it was a heck of a lot better than at lunchtime, which is just as well, because let’s face it, it couldn’t have been much worse!

Il Gozzo

Appetiser 8½ 9½
Entrée 9 9
Dessert 1 9½ 8½
Dessert 2 7½ 7
Service 8 7½
Atmosphere 9 9
Value for money 7½ 8½

Average score: 8.43

Eventually, around 10:30pm, we could put off it no longer, and we headed to bed. I couldn’t believe tomorrow would be our final day together.

The weather today was hot and sunny with temperatures in the high 80s.
The best thing today was visiting the aquarium.
The worst thing today was it was our last full day.
The funniest thing today was seeing the dolphin blowing bubbles!
Today we tried visiting Portofino
And the result was we were able to park and explore the area.
The most magical moment today was seeing the manatees and watching the dolphin blow rings of air!

Next: this is the best breakfast spread of this vacation!

[Colexis Mom]

What a great relaxing night! Dinner looked delish! Sorry it's all coming to an end!

[lauriep]

How sad that it's your last night with Mari and Raleigh. It's been such a wonderful trip.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by Colexis Mom

What a great relaxing night! Dinner looked delish! Sorry it's all coming to an end!

That was the only sad thing about that evening, that it was nearly all over.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by lauriep

How sad that it's your last night with Mari and Raleigh. It's been such a wonderful trip.

It was.

[disney_duke]

Beautiful sunset shots! I know - every few minutes it looks different so you have to get another shot with the different colors!
Sounds like this dinner was a wonderful way to end a wonderful trip!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by disney_duke

Beautiful sunset shots! I know - every few minutes it looks different so you have to get another shot with the different colors!

Exactly!

Sounds like this dinner was a wonderful way to end a wonderful trip!

It was!

[cubfancolleen]

It really did look like the crowning evening to the trip - beautiful sunset, delicious dinner, good friends. (I'm with you, though, on the smoking ruining things. I would be happy if the WORLD was non-smoking!)
Can't believe it's about to come to an end - this trip report has been going on longer than the trip itself, so there's about to be an empty spot in my day! Time for you to take a trip! But I do see you're off to Brussels in a few hours....

[chezp]

Originally Posted by cubfancolleen

It really did look like the crowning evening to the trip - beautiful sunset, delicious dinner, good friends. (I'm with you, though, on the smoking ruining things. I would be happy if the WORLD was non-smoking!)

Oh that would be so nice... it would make some places, I'm thinking Disneyland Paris here so much more enjoyable to visit.

Can't believe it's about to come to an end - this trip report has been going on longer than the trip itself, so there's about to be an empty spot in my day! Time for you to take a trip! But I do see you're off to Brussels in a few hours....

Well, there will be a gap tomorrow, because as you say we're off to Brussels for the weekend, so after this morning's update, nothing again until Monday, but it's nearly wrapped up.... four and a bit months after we got home!

[chezp]

Sunday 20 July – part one: this is the best breakfast spread of this vacation!

I was awake just after 7:00am, which meant I definitely got a good eight hours’ sleep last night, which is what I always aim for.

We had another go at the suitcase, and we ended up with one that was about 23kgs (the limit) and one that was 24kgs. Oh well, I think that’s the closest we can get it.

We’d said we’d meet Mari and Raleigh at breakfast at 8:15am, and I think this was about the first time we were down before them. I attempted to give our room number in Italian, but completely failed, and ended up having to point it out on the piece of paper the member of staff had.

I think this place has to rank as having the best breakfast spread of all the hotels we’ve stayed in:



There were so many things I’d either never seen at breakfast before or have only seen very rarely, like Prosecco, mini salads and panna cotta. I have to confess I really pigged out on everything they had here.

It wasn’t good that I pigged out so much as there was a woman in a tight fitting (and I seriously mean tight! ) white dress that literally only covered the bits it had to… but even worse there was there a large split up the back (intentional), which pretty much gave everything away, shall we say… Looking at that made both Mari and I feel nauseous – not a pretty sight!

We headed out a few minutes later, after waiting for one rain storm to clear. The way it seemed to work here is a bit like Florida, i.e. if it’s raining, give it a few minutes, and it’ll be gone, and that was the case today. I was hoping that leaving this early, we’d avoid all the street sellers, but sadly no such luck.

The aquarium was a lot busier, with lines both for tickets and to actually enter, something we didn’t encounter at all yesterday, so I guess we picked a good time to go.

We made our way over to Palazzo San Giorgio on the other side of the pedestrianized area. It’s an odd arrangements, as the cars run overhead, but you really don’t hear them until you’re right on top of them. Anyway, Palazzo San Giorgio is where Marco Polo was imprisoned in 1298 following a battle between the Venetians and the Genoese. It was here he met the man that he would go on to co-write Il Milione or “The Travels” with.



The sky was looking very evil overhead…



We headed up towards the historic centre of Genoa, and quickly found Piazza Banchi, in which the Church of San Pietro in Banchi is located. The original building on this site, which dated from the ninth century, was destroyed by fire in 1398, and the current building is from the 16th century.



We wandered through the very narrow streets of the old town…



We all commented that this isn’t somewhere we’d be keen to come at night. Genoa in general felt like an edgy city, one you could never 100% relax in, as there were always people around who looked shifty. They may have been fine, but that’s the impression I got.

Next we came to the San Lorenzo church, which was founded in the ninth century, although the current building dates from the 13th century. It looked beautiful from the outside…



We were very surprised to find that it was open, given it was a Sunday, but of course I couldn’t go in as I was in a vest top, and therefore exposing my shoulders (I still don’t understand that rule), so Mari and Mark went in, while Raleigh and I waited outside. From the photos they got, it looked very impressive, but I didn’t want to break any rules to see it for myself.



As we walked past the church, another little rain storm erupted, and at first, the rain was a very pleasant change from the humidity we were experiencing. It was cloudy, but it was still hot, and a lot more humid than in recent days, which was getting to all of us. When it got a bit heavier, we hovered next to a building for a while, until it eased up, and then we went on our way again.



Next: there’s no way of getting this home

[shazza]

Great shots from the aquarium. Now to go back and catch up on a few days I've missed.

[SuperDave]

Love the rest of your tour of the aquarium! That was quite a place with so much variety. I loved the dolphins blowing bubbles! That was quite some info Laurie gave on their sleeping patterns. One thing I really liked was the orange frogs!

Looks like you had a nice final dinner together! That was some breakfast the next morning and I don't know how one could not dive head first into it?

Just wondering if you ever had the chance to try Blood Orange juice, while you were in Italy? It's quite popular there and I like it better than the familiar kind.