When greater Genova was incorporated in the 1920s the city incorporated a number of smaller towns to the east and west. The result is a city that now stretches along 30km of coastline and into the hills behind the sea. Many of the districts outside of the city still have a smaller town feel with interesting parks, museums and beaches to explore. And the best part is, you can get anywhere in Genova for a E1.20 bus or train ride. We visited Pegli, towards the western end of Genova.

Pegli’s big attraction is the beautiful Parco Durazzo Pallavicini. The park covers 27 acres that strech up the hillside behind the Villa Pallavicini. The park is an elaborate English-style garden designed around 1840. Now, there are dirt pathways that wind up hills, around bends, and down revines making you feel like you’re lost in a fairytale maze.

The first part of the park that we came upon was the lake, where the Temple Diana rising up from the water looks like a scene from Fantasia, and the Chinese Pagoda on a bridge across the lake looks like it came from Epcot. The lake was filled with turtles poking their heads out of the water, ducks gliding along the surface, and noisy white geese honking at the resident peacock. Just behind the lake the path curves, rises, and opens up to overlook the lake, where, on a clear day, you can see out to sea.

Paths lead deeper into the park to enchanting sounding sights such as the Swiss chalet and a 14th-century style castle, but because it’s the off season the passageways leading to these areas were blocked off. We covered every inch of the maze-like paths in search of an open passageway, but to no avail. By that point we had worked up an appetite, so we found a little pizzeria back in Pegli where we watched the waitress toss dough in the air to make our pizzas, and a little dog sat under our table during our meal. Dogs are welcome everywhere in Genova!

Genova has close to 30 museums ranging from centuries old historic palaces to a modern acquarium. An annual museum card allows entry into 20 of them for free, and many more for a discount. It’s a good deal at 35 Euros, and an even better deal for students, which we passed for, at 20 Euros.

With museum card in hand, we went to our first Genovese museum, Museo dell’Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti. It’s a fine art museum featuring work by Genovese artists and other artists who spent time in Liguria from about the 1400s to the early 1900s.

The museum is housed on the third floor of a relatively nondescript palace in Piazza de Ferrari, the central plaza in Genova. When we arrived at the third floor entrance, the guard had to unlock the front door for us and call down to the ticket taker to check our passes because, apparently, we were the only visitors that afternoon. Having a museum to yourself really improves the experience, particularly in a country where it’s entirely possible that even one other visitor would find the need to stand on our heels to admire the same painting at the same time as us.

The cavernous white rooms with muted sunlight made a nice setting for the large paintings of bibical scenes and the Ligurian coast hanging from the walls and partitians. After a pleasant experience at Belle Arti we’re ready to tackle the rest of Genova’s museums. One down, 28 more to go…

This past week most of Italy has been going through a cold spell. It comes after one of the mildest winters in 25 years. In Genova this has meant temperatures in the 50s instead of the 60s. It also brought a snowfall to the hills on the western side of the city.

In this picture the snow covered hills make the less than picturesque shipping port look kind of nice. You can also see “La Lanterna” on the left side of the picture. This lighthouse is a famous landmark in Genova.

Last Saturday Genova held the first ever World Pesto Championship. Genova is the home of Pesto, and the sauce is a bit of an art form, held in very high regard here in Liguria. True Genovese Pesto is supposed to be made from basil leaves grown in close proximity to the Ligurian coast so that it has the proper sweet flavor. Forget lemons and parsley, the rest of the ingredients for Pesto are few and straightforward: garlic, pine-nuts, parmesan cheese, and extra virgin olive oil.

The Pesto Championship was held in an enormous, lavishly decorated ballroom in Palazzo Ducale. About 100 contestants from all over the world, though I suspect with a strong Ligurian contingent, were lined along four tables running the length of the ballroom. Each contestant was supplied with the same standard ingredients: a bag of basil, a block of parmesan cheese, a small bottle of olive oil, and cups full of garlic cloves, pine-nuts, grated cheese and sea salt. The only difference between each station was the marble mortar and wooden pestle that each contestant was allowed to bring. There was a faint smell of basil in the air as people milled around and snapped pictures before the competition began. To bring home the historic importance of the first World Pesto Championship, we were treated to an opening ceremony consisting of no less than 5 speakers lauding the magical qualities of Pesto and even to a Baroque-style song about Pesto. After about 15 minutes of pomp and circumstance, the emcee launched into the countdown: tre…due…uno…VAI!

The competition was underway. First, contestants peeled the garlic and poured pine-nuts into the mortar, then they mashed the two together. Then they plucked off the nicest looking basil leaves from their bunches and mashed some more…for a long time…making adjustments to these three ingredients as necessary. It wasn’t until towards the end of the process that they added the final ingredients of parmesan cheese and olive oil. All the while the smell of pesto in the air grew stronger and stronger. So this is how to make “true” pesto. After 45 minutes, the emcee came back over the speakers for the final countdown: tre…due…uno…STOP!

Apparently, although I can’t say for sure because the taste test was left to the official judges, these few ingredients can yield final products that vary greatly. Much later in the afternoon, and I’m sure after some good eating, the first ever World Pesto Champion was crowned. If you want to try making your own batch of Genovese Pesto, the recipe is at pestochampionship.net. Remember, absolutely no blenders or magic bullets allowed!

All over Genova there are posters advertising free art exhibits. On Saturday we decided to check out Jeune Creation Europeenne (Young European Creations), which was on display in the basement of Palazzo Ducale. The exhibit showed modern art by young people from all over Europe. I never seem to get modern art, but it was still nice to wander around knowing that there would be a lot more free exhibits to come.

On our way to the exhibit, we had come across Sapore al Ducale, an open air food market that sets up in a plaza outside of Palazzo Ducale the second weekend of every month. This was more our style! Small producers lined up in white tent covered stalls selling all kinds of “gastronomic delights” from Liguria. There were entire stands of full of cheese, wine, olives, honey and pastries. We combed through the market taking time to absorb (and sample) everything, and left with a bag full of big green olives and three bottles of wine.

The next day we decided to check out Bocadasse, a small fishing village within the city limits of Genova. As we headed up the main street leading from the Old Port to the city center in order to catch the bus we came across another unexpected discovery. This time it was an antique car show. Gleaming, perfectly preserved Alfa Romeos, Ferraris, Triumphs and Fiats lined the street and the central Piazza de Ferrari. There were also LOTS of people out taking pictures, a testament to the Italian affinity for fine cars.

After admiring the cars we hopped on a bus to Bocadasse. It was just like we had heard. Colorful houses clustered in close proximity rose up from a little cove, and small wooden fishing boats lined up along a rocky jetty. We snapped a few pictures, and with nothing much left to do in Bocadasse we set out to walk home along Corso Italia, the main coastal street that leads back into central Genova.

Corso Italia is great on the weekends! The wide, tiled pedestrian sidewalk fills with promenading locals, and on the second Sunday of every month, which this just happened to be, vendors set up stands along the way. The vendors hawk everything from clothing to gadgets to garden shears, and of course, food! It was just about lunch time so we bought a loaf of bread, half a wheel of unmarked cheese and a stick of wild boar sausage, and sat down for an impromptu lunch overlooking the Mediterranean.

Everyone who moves to Italy seems to have a story about false starts, long lines and lots of running around when it comes to registering in the country. Here’s our story.

First thing Monday morning we went to the “Questura,” or police station, to pick up our application for the “Permesso di Soggiorno” or permit to stay. We had heard stories of people waiting in line for hours at the Questura only to have the office close for the day before ever making it to the front of the line, so we were please to see only a couple people waiting in front of us at the information booth. After a few uneasy minutes of trying to figure out what the people in front of us were there for, our turn came. We asked the friendly female officer for the Permesso application, and she informed us that we needed to get it at the post office.

OK, false start. So we headed over to the main post office. We walked through the sliding glass doors to find ourselves in a busy waiting lounge where at least 30 people were waiting for their number to be called by one of the service windows. This did not bode well…Now, where did we need to go for our Permesso application? There was no help desk, and none of the information signs mentioned anything about the Permesso. Ricky took a chance and asked a woman loitering at the edge of the room who seemed to be an employee. She said something, then hurried through a door behind the service windows and soon returned with two application kits.

Progress. We took the kits back to our hotel and began leafing through the eight page application form and trying to make sense of the instruction page. It seemed that we would need a “codice fiscale,” which is a kind of identity number. We had already read up about the codice fiscale and knew that anyone should be able to get one by visiting the “Ufficio delle Entrate,” or Entry Office, and filling out some more paperwork.

The next day we went over to the Ufficio delle Entrate, which was much more crowded than the Questura had been. We made our way through the crowd to the information desk as best we could in a mix of American respect for waiting your turn and Italian pushiness. The man at the desk gave us the one page application, and after a quick glance we saw that it would require an address.

Time to find an apartment. The previous day we had gone to a rental agency where we were shown a nice little apartment. On Monday we weren’t sure if we should take some time to see a few other places or just go with the first one. Tuesday our decision was made. We went with the first one. So we headed over to the rental agency and put the deposit down on the apartment.

With our new address in hand we returned to the Ufficio delle Entrate on Wednesday to apply for our codice fiscale. We got to the office right when it opened after lunch (along with about 40 other people) and pushed our way forward with the mass of people. Again, we visited the information booth, but this time we were given a number to wait our turn to pass in the application. Shortly, our number was called, and we sat with a civil servant as she entered our information into the computer and generated our codice fiscale numbers.

Victory! We had print-outs of our codice fiscale numbers in hand. But, then the woman told us we would need to get a Tessera Sanitaria, or health card. This was news to us. We had never heard of the Tessera Sanitaria before. She told us we would need to go up to Piazza Manin to get it, though she couldn’t seem to tell us the exact address.

We decided to table the Tessera Sanitaria for a little bit, while we focused our attention back on the Permesso di Soggiorno. The eight page application turned out not to be so bad. Most of the questions didn’t apply to us, and we were able to fill in all the required information. We collected all the necessary back-up documentation (photocopies of our passports, return flight to the US, proof of health insurance, and proof we had enough money to support ourselves while in Italy), and were ready to go back to the post office to turn it in.

Thursday morning we returned to the main post office, figuring that since we got the application there we would also turn it in there. Not so. The first three people we asked had no idea what to do with the application, but we did figure out we needed to find a post office with a “sportello amico” or “friend window”. It appeared the main post office did not have one. We then called the toll free Permesso phone number, and the person who answered told us that there were 30 post offices with “friend windows”, but he could not tell us which was closest to our current location.

Feeling very frustrated we decided to ask the woman at the post office gift shop (yes, this post office had a gift shop) if she knew where to find a sportello amico. She did! So we went on our way to a nearby post office.

At the next post office, we were directed to a window in the corner, where we waited for the resident Permesso processor to review our applications. She asked us if we had made copies of every page in our passports. No, just copies of the information page and the page with our entry stamp. She sighed and disappeared to make copies all the other pages. Why they need to see a stamp from a vacation to Jamaica three years ago is beyond me, but at least she made the photocopies for us, and didn’t send us away to get them ourselves.

We paid the application fee, then she pulled out her official looking black stamp and slammed it down on our applications. What a welcome sight! She tossed our applications onto an already tall stack of other applications, and told us we would need to go to the Questura once we got a receipt in the mail.

Now we wait. We expect to get the receipt in about a month. But it’s entirely possible it will take longer. Until then, we’re resting easy because as far as we know we’re done with phase one of the registration process.

…but there’s still the Tessera Sanitaria. Thursday afternoon, after feeling pretty good that we had successfully submitted our Permesso applications, we made our way up towards Piazza Manin without knowing exactly what we were looking for. The woman who gave us our codice fiscale described it as a “big palace.” Normally this kind of description would make any building stand out, but when you’re in a city full of palaces and every building seems to be frescoed, “big palace” means nothing. Somehow, we found the building and went in for our Tessera Sanitaria. We made our way into the waiting area and found there was no line, which is always a welcome sight. We were helped by a nice gentleman who brought us into his office, looked at our Codice Fiscale paperwork, saw that we’re Americans, and said there’s nothing he could do for us. Apparently this Health Card is only for Europeans to let them get urgent care around Europe, it’s not for us. This information would’ve helped us a few days before, but it wouldn’t be a true Italian process without having a few extra, unnecessary steps.