On Saturday the Mediterranean Tall Ships arrived in Genova for a four day stay. It’s the last stop after a three week tour along the coast of Spain, France and Italy. 50,000 people flooded the port area to admire the ships and to check out the various events and exhibitions being held in celebration. The ships range in age from less than one year old to more than 160 years and range in size from about 10 meters to 100 meters. Most are open to the public to board during the day. The main attraction is the Amerigo Vespucci, a giant 3 masted Italian Navy training ship built in 1931.

Back on land, an Americas Cup racing boat, complete with 15 foot rudder, has been set up so you can really get a feel for the ship’s height. An open air market, which attracts specialty food vendors and artisans from across Italy, fills the open space in Piazza Caricamento opposite the aquarium. Tempting arrays of cheese, spices and pastries are all on display.

Saturday night was capped off by a brilliant fireworks display over the port above the illuminated ships. At 1 o’clock in the morning when the fireworks began, it felt like most of the 50,000 spectators from the day were still there to watch the show. On a weekend like this, you would never think that 15 years ago, not only was this area devoid of development, but the public couldn’t even access the harbor front.

As part of our journey to Berlin we found ourselves with a few hours of time for a stop-over in Milan, so we decided fit in a little site seeing. Originally we wanted to see Di Vinci’s Last Supper, but reservations are necessary, and they book up weeks in advance. Instead we went to the city center to see the Duomo, the Gothic-style cathedral which is the second largest church in Italy. The Duomo is easily one of the most beautiful buildings in all of Europe. The white marble facade, with patterned tiers carved of the surface, radiates in the sunshine, and the spindle-like spires, each topped with a different statue, rise up from innumerable points along the roof as if piercing the sky. As you walk around the cathedral and view it from different angles, the spires, scalloping and other embellishments combine to form new and mesmerizing patterns.

The massive cathedral took nearly 500 years to construct with work beginning in the 14th century, continuing through the renaissance and on to Napoleons reign until finally culminating in the 19th century. Now, restoration work has begun, and when we saw the Duomo the bottom half of the façade was covered in scaffolding, but that did little to diminish the magnificence of the building.

Inside, the dark interior is vast and expansive, providing the perfect atmosphere for the stained glass windows to stand out. When the sun shines just right, rays of colored light stream through the air and illuminate points on the giant columns and floor in a kaleidoscope of color.

Ahhhh, fresh, flavorful beer. It’s one of the few finer things in life that’s regrettably lacking in Italy. In search of quality beer we went to one of the greatest beer producing countries in the world, Germany, and spent a weekend in Berlin. Between pints we found time to enjoy the city’s beautiful sites and fascinating history. Berlin is one of the most unique cities in Europe because of all the years it spent divided between East and West. Today West Berlin is full of big buildings and modern construction projects, like the Sony Center, which is a futuristic mall/movie theater/museum/apartment complex. East Berlin is where all the more historic sites and buildings are located, and all of them seem to have a story behind them.

Around Berlin there are subtle reminders of World War II and communist rule. In West Berlin the remains of a church that was bombed have been left standing as a memorial. In the heart of the city the former site of the Berlin wall is now marked by stone slabs paved into the ground.

You can see all the major landmarks in East Berlin on foot in one day. A great way to start is with a trip up to the glass dome on top of the Reichstag building, which was added as part of the building’s reconstruction. The building was severely damaged in 1933 when Hitler set fire to it and blamed the communist party in a scheme for a Nazi government takeover. From the dome there are 360 degree views of the entire city and surroundings. Nearby, the famous Brandenburg Gate, topped by a proud statue of a galloping horse drawn chariot, marks the beginning of Unter den Linden Street, the main road that traverses the historic city center. The street is lined with large marble buildings housing such establishments as the State Opera and a University. Just off Unter den Linden Street is Gendarmenmarkt Square with the beautiful Deutscher Dom (German Cathedral) and Französischer Dom (French Cathedral). It’s said to be one of the most beautiful squares in Europe. The way these elegant marble structures accented by columns and statues rise up from an expansive stone paved plaza certainly gives merit to the claim. Further on, the former site of Checkpoint Charlie now houses an outdoor display with two city blocks worth of billboards that chronicle the split and eventual unification of Berlin. Back on Unter den Linden Street is the Berliner Dom, the largest cathedral in Berlin, built by the last German Emperor, Wilhem II, between 1895 and 1904. Behind the cathedral is Museum Island, so named for the narrow strip of land where two rivers meet which houses several important museums.

Of course, all this walking can be a bit tiring. A great way to end the day is to stop at one of the restaurants or cafes that line the rivers and order a beer. We especially enjoyed a brewery with plenty of outdoor seating near the statue of Saint George along the Spree River. And, no trip to Berlin is complete without a visit to Tiergarten, the giant, forested park home to running paths and biergartens where you can lounge away all night on the wooden picnic tables sampling the delicious draughts and cheap pretzels.

To see more of our pictures from Berlin, click here.

Palazzo Rosso is one of three mansions that make up a museum complex on La Strada Nuova, or “the new street,” so named in the 16th and 17th centuries when wealthy families wished to distinguish themselves from the more crowded historic center and built this wide avenue lined with stately mansions. Today, this street is called via Garibaldi and it’s part of a network of historic streets in Genova that are on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

The first floor of Palazzo Rosso houses 16th and 17th century paintings from the Brignole-Sale collection, the family that built the mansion. The wealthy family members were quite the patrons of art, and their collection includes works by Van Dyck, Veronese and Genovese artists. On the second floor, the attraction is the rooms themselves, which are full of well preserved frescos. Some rooms are covered floor to ceiling and wall to wall with gentle pastel colors and whimsical scenes of cherubs and gods.

The unexpected draw for Palazzo Rosso, though, is the incredible views afforded from the small rooftop lookout. Palazzo Rosso is three giant stories tall, and the cathedral roof adds at least another story. Via Garibaldi, on which Palazzo Rosso is situated, is at the top end of centro storico, which slopes down to the harbor. Behind Via Garibaldi the residential district of Castelletto is built into the steep hillside. Everywhere you turn there is something to see, and because the Palazzo is in the middle of the city all the sites feel much more immediate than they do from more distant vantage points in the hills.

All around Genova there are hiking routes through the hills. The nearby Portofino peninsula has a few different itineraries, some take the inland route, and one hugs the coastline. Although the coastal route is labeled ‘difficult’ and some friends warned us that we’d be using chains to help us traverse the path in some sections, we thought ‘how hard could it really be?’ Besides, the views from the coastal route were supposed to be amazing.

The hike started out easy enough. We trekked through a forested area that seemed almost as lush as a rainforest and emerged high above the sea for an incredible view of the coast looking back towards Camogli, where we started the hike. As we walked along some 200 meters above sea-level and looked up at the sheer cliffs above, we thought this isn’t so bad. We even made it through a section of the path with the famous chains, which were connected to a sloping rock face next to the narrow walkway.

Around the time that we passed an out-of-breath hiker with slightly bloody knees who had just fought off a wild boar is when things started getting a little tricky. We never encountered the wild boar, but we did meet many, many more areas that required the assistance of chains, and, after descending down to near sea-level we climbed back up another giant hill, zigzagging across it dozens of times because it was just too steep to face head on. Needless to say, it was exhausting.

Finally, after 3 hours, we reached the half-way point of San Fruttuoso, a tiny village accessible only by boat or by foot. We had planned to continue on to Portofino, but our legs thought otherwise. San Fruttuoso is a popular tourist spot, so there are lots of water ferries that shuttle people to various train accessible points along the coast. We caught a ferry back to Camogli and from the comfort of the ferry’s top deck surveyed the route we had just traversed.

For more of our pictures from the hike, click here.

Every second weekend in May since 1952 throngs of Italians have gathered in the picturesque fishing village of Camogli to celebrate the life blood of the village, fish! The Sagra del Pesce festivities last all weekend, but the main events are Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Saturday Night
Just as night falls and giant globes of white lights strung up above the streets illuminate the village, the procession for San Fortuno, the patron saint of fisherman, begins. A brass band leads the way up and down the streets around the harbor as thousands of spectators watch the giant sarcophagus for San Fortuno pass by. At the end of the route the heavy float is precariously carried up the stairs to the Church of Santa Maria Assunta. When it reaches the top, the crowd cheers because the float has successfully reached its destination.

A couple hours pass and the crowd fills up on seafood, ice cream, and beer as they wait for the fireworks to begin. Spectators gather along the beachfront promenade where the fireworks will be set off just a few meters away. The fireworks bang and glow directly overhead reflecting colored lights off the tall houses lining the beach. The grand finale is unlike any fireworks display I’ve ever seen. A flaming arrow is shot at the the belltower of the Church of Santa Maria Assunta, which sits at one end of the beach. Sparks and flames shoot out of the belltower from all angles, and it lights a wire connected to a giant wooden cartoon character constructed on the beach below. The flame creeps down the wire, and with a little help from torches on the beach, the construction is engulfed in flames within minutes. The temperature on the promenade rises, and for a few moments it’s almost as bright as day. It doesn’t take long for the construction to burn to the ground, signaling the end evening and time to rest up for the main event tomorrow.

Sunday Morning
A giant padella, frying pan, has been set up on a stage above the harbor. This frying pan is said to be the largest in the world weighing 2900 kilograms with a diameter of 3.8 meters. The frying pan is filled with hot oil, and smaller baskets of whole fish are dunked and then dished out in paper bowls to the hungry crowd. The feast starts at 10am and lasts until everyone has been fed.

The process of queuing up to receive your own bowl of fried fish is a lesson in Italian culture at its truest form. The concept of a line simply does not exist in Italy. So rather than orderly lining up behind those who came first, Italians simply push and fight and wiggle their way forward from all angles trying to creep closer dishing out point. And of course, there’s food involved. The mouth watering scent of fried oil wafting through the air makes everyone’s efforts to bypass those around them all the more fervent. With so many people on hand, as soon as you pass through the periphery of the group, you no longer have control of your own movements and are at the will of the crowd around you, which contains a large number of stout, pushy old women who are bound and determine to get there before you.

Eventually we made it to the front of the crowd, thanks in most part to the momentum of the people behind us. There was a police officer controlling the flow of traffic at the entrance to the frying pan area. He stepped aside and let a few of us ascend the walkway to the frying pan, where we got a quick look inside, and were handed a still steaming bowl of fish. It was delicious, fresh ans simple with nothing more than the olive oil and a squirt of lemon for seasoning. And imagine this, by the time we finished our fish, the unruly crowd had transformed into an orderly line!

To see more our pictures from the Sagra del Pesce, click here.