Genoa and Home

October 25-November 1

Genoa was a funny place. They kept claiming weird things. They claim to have invented foccacia bread. They also claim to know which house was Columbus's. It seems to be the only surviving residence from that era. Strange that in the real world the consensus is that there is no evidence linking him to Genoa other than his own claims. They also say they invented blue jeans, as opposed to everybody else's opinion that they were created during the 1848 California Gold Rush. There's a lot of that kinda thing here.

Anyhow, our days filled with street walks, mini train voyages, hunting around for food, and visiting museums.

Might be a good time to compare our rooms across the entire trip. The cruise will be left out.

All of the accommodations have been fine, but very different. In Vienna we had a shower and sink, but the toilet was communal and down the hall. Everyplace else we had sink, shower and toilet. Salzburg was exactly that, but every place in Italy seemed to think a bidet was a must. Venice, Monterosso, and Rapallo all had nice ones, which we got quite into using. The last stop, Genoa, was different. No separate bidet, but a horrifying looking nozzle built into a very strange and ancient toilet seat that we assume was supposed to fulfil the same function. We kept our hands off the controls.

Water pressure varied widely, but was good enough. We sink-washed laundry everywhere. Venice had a problem with drying due to humidity until we figured out how to blast the heater to Sahara level.

All of the breakfast setups were swell. In Salzburg, it wasn't included so we found our own downtown each day.

We ate differently in each town. In Vienna we had a slew of schnitzel meals. Helen had a few herring buns, and I had vaguely Asian noodles from fast-food stands. In Salzburg, we ate absolutely nothing but pretzels and pastry for three days. Venice was pizza and pasta. Monterosso we did pasta and calamari several times, and our one eat in Rapallo had Helen having a chicken salad and I had lamb and squid on sticks. In Genoa it was mostly stuff from wee shops that we ate on church steps or walking, and sometimes groceries in our room.

So finally our last day arrived. We were up at 4am to catch the 5:24 bus from the train station to the aeroporto. We were waddling up the street by 4:30. The only difficulty was that Helen's injured leg decided to hurt again. She was limping. Got to the bus stop in plenty of time. There was one other person waiting when a taxi came and offered to take us for the same price as the bus. We took him up on it.

The airport was small, and with a slightly non-traditional layout. We got to gate 2 with a comfortable margin.

The plan called for a flight to Paris, then another to Amsterdam, with the final ten-hour leg to follow.

The first flight was right on time; landing us in Paris's Charles de Gualle airport at terminal 2g. We had to figure out that we needed to go to building 2f to get to our gate. That entailed a bus ride, followed by a long walk for Helen's sore leg. We made it. I don't like tight connections at all.

So they loaded us on. The seat next to mine turned out to be empty, which gave me extra stretch-out space. The bad news came that we would be camping there a while due to heavy fog in Amsterdam. As they are KLM, they broke out sodas and snacks while we waited. We could only hope that our Canada-bound plane would still be there for us.

More snacks and drinks once we were in the air, but it turned out that Amsterdam was still a fog bank. We got as far as Rotterdam, and then had to circle, awaiting the OK to finish the flight. After a few loops, we did.

Just before landing, they announced the connecting flights that would be tight, and the two that were impossible. It seems the missed flight only mattered to 6 passengers, out of several hundred. They said all others were OK, but to hurry.

We hurried, and covered the hundred miles or so to our gate. Helen was amazing. We got there exactly at boarding time, and so got into the queue before most of the folks seated and waiting. Helen got another window seat, this time not directly over the wing. On our other four flights she always had an obstructed view. The flight was on the same kind of plane that we came on; 8 seats across. I think the middle 4 must suck. First thing, I got the trip-tracker view on the tiny screen on the seat-back in front of me.

Off we flew. I stopped caring about delay time, as our Vancouver ETA was 2:38pm. That worked for us. That made a 5:30pm ferry possible, and a 7:30 a definite certainty. Even the later boat would get us home before 10:00pm.

Racing like lunatics through airports, with three flights totalling over 13 hours crammed into very restricted spaces. It is doing no favours to Helen's leg injury, and also had my mildly arthritic knees nicely aching. This, even considering that these are the best airline seats for comfort that we've sat in for a good many years. KLM is wonderful compared to what North American airlines consider adequate leg room. Neither of us is even tall, or has any real mobility issues.

On a North American airline I can only really handle maybe Los Angeles range. Even going to Florida is a trial. Might have to at least investigate business class prices. I doubt we can choke those down, but sometimes there are Economy Plus seats with more room at less astronomical rates.

There was then customs to get by, and a skytrain to catch.

It all actually went very smoothly. Rode the train to town, and waited a bit in the rain for the bus to the ferry. After the boat, there was an express bus waiting to take us swiftly to our town. It being Sunday, there was no connecting bust to West Sechelt, but there was a taxi sitting nearby, which we grabbed for the last few miles to get home.

It all added up to about seven more hours of travel after we got off our flight from Europe.