Day at Sea and Genoa

After Greece, we had another day at sea.  I am not sure which the boys enjoyed more, hanging on the boat with us or visiting other countries. 

 

We decided to break from cards and played some spinner dominoes.

 

But we didn't get through all the numbers before the boys decided to build things with them instead of play them.

 

They look so sweet and innocent

 

and then they go at it!!  Michael was hilarious and said he had a really hard head and was trying to prove it.

 

AJ messing around before the show that night

 

This gal was pretty amazing - she also did stuff with ropes

 

 

This was a neat act with the black lights.

 

Then we headed into Genoa.  We decided not to take an excursion, but it turned out good because there was a hop on hop off bus right there.  One cool thing about this one is that it had a kids version.  So we listened to the boring adult information while the kids had their own.  It was the first time I saw this.  An interesting fact about Genoa is Marco Polo wrote his famous book while he was imprisoned here.  It is also where Christopher Columbus grew up.

 

 

This is the main port where people come on so they had all of their MSC flags out ready for new people.

 

This is the Plazza de Ferrari - which is the heart of the city.

 

This used to be the stock exchange building, it is now a post office.  That is an amazing looking post office.

 

And of course the water draws the boys in.  They can't be around it without being in it some how.  ;-)

 

Michael doing his dance on top of some old ruins in Genoa and AJ looking handsome.

 

Mikey the monkey - I am telling you anything he could even attempt to climb on he did!  :-)

 

 

Next we went into Christopher Columbus' childhood home.  This is the house that he grew up in.  The boys were amazed about the cooking area and how small it was.

 

A stone art of the Santa Maria - pretty cool.

 

Then we headed down to another part of town - here you can see the three ships of Christopher Columbus.  They were changing out the flowers while I was taking this picture. 

 

 

This was their main terminal for trains - I am still amazed at how cool these buildings are.

 

So this is a small, small portion of the scooters that we saw here.  There were parking areas like this all over the place!!

 

Aren't they too cute?!?  Still smiling even with all the walking we did so far.

 

This is a statue for Christopher Columbus - as you can see it was HUGE and very detailed.  There are four different people on the corners of it with snakes, books, etc.

 

Then we went to Castle Albert!  We had to go of course.  It was Alberto but still close enough. 

 

Here King Albert is on his mighty lion!

 

The boys running up on top of the wall, yes on top of it!

 

They were happy to sit in the shade for a little while - or they are just really cute all the time!!

 

This is the castle that we went up to.   It is still in great shape.  We decided not to go in to it though.  So after that we headed back down to where the bus let us off.  Only David decided he wanted to walk and not take the public elevator.  Well we walked and walked and walked some more.  I really thought he was taking us some where that we were going to get jumped.  Luckily we didn't and he found us the place where we needed to go. 

 

 

So of course, the boys job was to find a gelato place and they succeeded.  We met a really nice American couple on holiday also at the ice cream shop and chatted with them for awhile.  It was nice to hear English again for a little bit.  :-)

 

Waiting for the bus - the boys found a place to run around and around.

 

And more running around after birds, they are worse than dogs sometimes in chasing the birds.  They go after them where ever we are.

 

 

This was a pirate ship built for a prop on a movie.  It looked pretty neat so we decided to go and check it out.

 

 

The big anchors for the ship.

 

The boys were trying to raise the anchors, but I don't think they were heavy enough. 

 

All of the boys thought the cannons were fantastic!!!  There were over three dozen of them in the boat.

 

I decided it was time for a picture of the boys and I - It was a cool ship to roam around on and of course the boys climbed around on it too.

 

 

This "lantern" as they called it was built in 1128 and is still working.

 

David trying a local beer, he said it wasn't too bad.

 

We ended the night with a beautiful sunset off the back of the ship and our wonderful friend Kathy joined us for dinner and we played a game of trash with her.  The boys wanted to teach her how to play.  This was the last night on the boat so we had to go back and pack everything up and see if we could fit it all in the suitcase and head to Rome for the last of our adventure on this trip.