One more night at sea as the ship sailed it's final leg to Genoa from Rome, 18 days had just flown by. It was all a bit sad saying goodbye, but, we now had to get to the Columbus sea hotel for a overnight stay before we took a ferry that departed at 6pm the next day.
We could see our hotel from the top deck and it looked about 1 klm away, Wrong, by the time we got off and out of the port area it was like 3 klm away. While walking and towing our bags, my case lost two of it's six wheels so I lugged it along the last 1.5 klm. Check in at the hotel was 2pm, they let us store our bags in the office and off we went to look at a supermarket and shops in the terminal that we would be leaving from the next day, only 250 meters away. A girl behind the desk in the hotel told us how to use the public bus system in Genoa. You buy a 100 min ticket from stores and you can get on any bus within that time limit. We soon had it down pat and with Teresa speaking Italian we were finding the places of interest very quickly. As we walked around the central area I spotted George from Perth and from our table on the ship, we chatted for a while. They were staying there for four days, we also saw several other people off the ship waiting to get transport out of Genoa.
The next day with a new case in tow we checked into the ferry office and then went to the ferry. The ferry had cabins and aircraft type seats to sleep in, As it was for one night only we decided on a Pullman seat each would be okay. They had four big rooms with these seats on the upper deck. On arrival in our big room several men had claimed four seats in a row to themselves.
They had large king size blankets spread out over the four seats and as the time wore on lots more men came in and did the exact same thing. They were from Morocco and were drivers heading back to home. We did not know about the ferry going to Morocco as we were going to Barcelona only. I said to Teresa we were in for a heavy night of snoring. Teresa was the only female in this big cabin and in the morning she said I was the one who snored the most. yea right!
In Barcelona we got off to great crowds of tourists and people enjoying their Sunday out. As we left the dock through a side gate a couple in front of us wanted to know where customs and passport control was, we told them you are still in Europe and it wasn't needed.
We could see our hotel from the top deck and it looked about 1 klm away, Wrong, by the time we got off and out of the port area it was like 3 klm away. While walking and towing our bags, my case lost two of it's six wheels so I lugged it along the last 1.5 klm. Check in at the hotel was 2pm, they let us store our bags in the office and off we went to look at a supermarket and shops in the terminal that we would be leaving from the next day, only 250 meters away. A girl behind the desk in the hotel told us how to use the public bus system in Genoa. You buy a 100 min ticket from stores and you can get on any bus within that time limit. We soon had it down pat and with Teresa speaking Italian we were finding the places of interest very quickly. As we walked around the central area I spotted George from Perth and from our table on the ship, we chatted for a while. They were staying there for four days, we also saw several other people off the ship waiting to get transport out of Genoa.
The next day with a new case in tow we checked into the ferry office and then went to the ferry. The ferry had cabins and aircraft type seats to sleep in, As it was for one night only we decided on a Pullman seat each would be okay. They had four big rooms with these seats on the upper deck. On arrival in our big room several men had claimed four seats in a row to themselves.
They had large king size blankets spread out over the four seats and as the time wore on lots more men came in and did the exact same thing. They were from Morocco and were drivers heading back to home. We did not know about the ferry going to Morocco as we were going to Barcelona only. I said to Teresa we were in for a heavy night of snoring. Teresa was the only female in this big cabin and in the morning she said I was the one who snored the most. yea right!
In Barcelona we got off to great crowds of tourists and people enjoying their Sunday out. As we left the dock through a side gate a couple in front of us wanted to know where customs and passport control was, we told them you are still in Europe and it wasn't needed.
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| Teresa and Anna (from Adelaide AU) now life time friends |
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| Arriving in Genoa |
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| Control tower on left in picture was knocked down by a ship just after we left, killing at least six people |
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| Marilyn and Rita sailing out of Genoa, taken from our hotel window |
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| Teresa saying goodbye to Egon the 85yo from our table who has done, 168 cruises, 58 with the MSC cruise line.      |
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| watch your step |
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| On route from Genoa to Barcelona |
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| Our Ferry in Barcelona |
