It's been a while since my last entry (sounds like confession), so I've a bit to make up. I guess the best way to do it is chronologically, so first things first: Nice.

Nice

Europe seems to be in the throes of renovation; remember Amsterdam and Paris with their museums. Nice was no exception, although it wasn't the museums this time, it was the main street, Rue des Medicins. This is a big street and should be the centrepiece of the city. Now its width is dug up and the colonnaded walkways hemmed in by barriers. Think O'Connell Street of recent years, on speed.

Anyhow I turned away from this mess to visit the two main modern art attractions, the Marc Chagall Museum and the Matisse Museum. The Chagall wasn't too far away, so I tried that first. It's small, but beautifully built and set in a quiet area, with a small restaurant in the grounds. Inside of course is what really mattered and it's glorious. There is a naivete about Chagall's style that's endearing, but the explosion of colour is overwhelming. The scenes from the Bible are displayed in such a way as to be a kind of rainbow; a painting of blues here, of reds here, Moses receiving the tablets in yellow. Then the Song of Solomon dedicated to his wife, I think, is pretty touching.

Matisse wasn't as complimentary to his wife. After a salad nicoise in the garden restaurant, I made my way to the Matisse Museum. Two Japanese girls in the Chagall were obviously headed in the same direction; we were all a bit bemused at times because it was a fair hike up a hill to get there. Before it lies a little Roman amphitheatre I wandered around for a while. This was meant to be immediately before the Matisse, but even then I had some difficulty. The museum's in a pleasant park, but I walked through it once or twice before finding it.

In contrast to the colours of Chagall, Matisse is all lines on white paper and limited palettes. They're interesting, but I find his sculptures a little more lively. Before coming on this trip I'd read a book on sculpture for a possible project. Already at the Picasso Museum in Paris I'd seen some of the pieces I'd read about. The author had raved about Matisse and much of what I had read about on Matisse was here too. On entering the museum, for instance, I was greeted with two engravings of a woman's back that were very familiar. Downstairs though lies the bulk of the sculptures. Here Matisse makes his tribute to his wife. The heads of the artist's wife get steadily more unpleasantly stylised the later they were made. She ends up looking like a bubble version of the Wicked Witch of the West. Two heads of children likewise come out as some things from a Bill Plympton cartoon. Nevertheless, these are good pieces and I was pleased to see them.

I meant to write that while at the Hill of the Chateau the day before, I had what looked like a rat cross my path. As I went further on two more (one may have been the earlier one) ran down the hill beside me, one going into the shrubbery the other climbing a tree! Do rats climb trees? Mr Attenborough (or Gordon, if you're reading), were these in fact rats or instead some variety of Nicean Ubermaus with arborial proclivities. They seemed friendly enough, if a little spooked.

Today I had with me my video camera, so tired as I was I made the trek back into town and climbed the hill again to shoot the 'amazing panorama'. Munching on some peaches I headed home to the glorious Trocadero.

Accommodation, not to mention destination, had to be arranged for the next day. I had been thinking of joining my father in Stuttgart for the Ireland-Germany game on Saturday, but it would have been too far. Instead I got a hotel deal in Genoa (4 star for the price I payed in Amsterdam) and chose to go there for the weekend. That was solved relatively painlessly. I went to the station and got a ticket then. The choices open to me were 2.00 and 10 in the morning. Instinctively, thinking of my lie on, I said 2.00, but then I thought, Hang on, I'm wasting a day. I got the ticket for 10.00 to arrive at lunchtime. Right now though, it was dinnertime.

I was determined to eat in the maze of alleys down near the beach that night, so I resisted all the tempting tourist menus on the way down. In the end, the place I found was adequate though not great, the rabbit a little bland. The service though was terrible, so on I went to Ma Nolan's to drown my sorrows. Some Damien Rice sound-alike finally started up around 11, but I was bored by then and went home to pack.

Nice has the sun, the sea, some attractions and a lot of tourists, hence a bit of night life; but it's all a bit grotty (not just the hotel). It doesn't deserve the reputation. Genoa on the other hand might.

Genoa

The trip down to Genoa made me more disgruntled. I had to share a compartment with two German love birds. Luckily there was generally someone else in the car, but occasionally I had to suffer the horny little gits whenever we were left alone. Then of course Fate continued to spoil my picture taking. Right outside my seat in the corridor, of all the corridor, and all the windows, people just had to stand and block my view. When it was clear and I managed to get the video camera from the monster's grip we seemed to go into a tunnel for the remaining half hour of the journey. Grrrrr.

My stop was before the Germans, so as I took my leave I gave them a little "Auf Wiedersehen" to give them pause to wonder if I did in fact understand all their sweet nothings.

So it is probably unsurprising that Genoa was to make such a favourable first impression. The hotel was practically at the station's front door. All set for a tiny closet of a room, I got a stunning, huge room with bath etc. etc.. I was reeling with joy. Then I headed out for a walk. The sun was roasting the streets, and I took a chance on a pannini with tomota and mozzarella from a little pokey shop. Giving too much in payment, the shopkeeper stopped me and gave me the correct change. And the sandwich was delicious (I was to live on those for lunch over the next few days). Then looking around you could see that the buildings looked a little like Nice only cleaner, grander. Suddenly you came across a courtyard with a beautiful waterfall sprinkling light everywhere. And then there was the rabbit warren of little alley ways that made the Nice maze into a dual carriageway junction. This was glorious, but where were all the people. It was empty. Ah, I shrewdly guessed, siesta.

The thing was it wasn't just siesta. Even as the day wore on, past afternoon, people were relatively thin on the ground. Tourists were not that common, not of the foreign variety anyway. There were a lot of Italians there for the aquarium, apparently the largest in Europe, but young people, in fact any age, were sparse. You could walk down huge empty streets untroubled. You didn't even have to fear being mugged, because there was no one there to do it.

Though I will say the alleys got a little strange. At just 8 in the evening, with the sun low in the sky, but still shining, they were like midnight passageways. Being so narrow, and the buildings tall, the light simply couldn't get down to street level. And with so few tourists, you didn't know if the alley you were in was close to life or not. The shine was rubbing off a little.

Lunch is easy to get here, dinner not so. I went searching for a restaurant recommended by the Rough Guide. When I eventually found it it was closed. For good, I think. (The next day I tried and again it was closed). The place I eventually found served good food, though nothing fantastic. Given that I wanted to see the Ireland match the next day, I went then to locate the Britannia, an English bar that doubles as an Irish bar (they serve Guinness), and make sure it would be on. I am no great soccer fan, but given the team we were up against, the fact my father was along, and that there might be some ex-pats along at the bar, I was interested in seeing it. There was no television so the match was out here. In fact there wasn't much there at all. Besides an Italian, I was the only one at the bar, and then he left. In Nice the Irish bars may be owned by French, but they're staffed by Irish. Here it was Italian all the way. I asked the barman when did the Irish come in, thinking it might be 10, 11, even 12. "Winter," was his reply. I finished my pint and left.

My room was right beside the elevator. Whether it was this machinery or not, I'm not sure, but on going to bed I suddenly knew the shine was gone. An intermittent rattling coming from the ceiling was hellbent on keeping me awake. In an effort to drown it out with a more manageable, regular sound, I turned up the air conditioning. This worked for a time, but after two I noticed the rattling had stopped (must have been the elevator) and I could finally sleep properly.

In the morning the sound seemed to be gone and I optimistically thought others had complained and they had fixed it. I headed out to the aquarium.

The aquarium was madness. Full to the brim with squealing kids and angry parents. Often the exhibits were too hidden by crowds to be seen at all; the Common Octopus, for instance, must have felt like it was on X-Factor. Nothing common here! It is big, and I spent three hours there, but one I saw in Chicago was far more impressive. The real stars of the show here were the rays. They literally came up out of the water to be petted. Even the stingrays, despite a warning sign, were there to be touched (sadly ironic given the recent fate of the Crocodile Hunter) and seemed to be flipping half their bodies out of the water at the audience. I petted a few of the ordinary rays, but I wondered at the wisdom of it all. Surely all those human hands must cause some disease for the fish. Then I noticed on a few that the skin seemed to be ripped open at the tail; you could literally see the bone. Was this the result of all this human contact? Having said that the thought of one of them on my dinner plate did cross my mind too.

I wandered in search of another Irish pub, again not a real Irish pub, but a Scottish one that again sold Guinness. I found it, but at 4 in the afternoon it was shut. Instead the shopping area such as it was beckoned. Not too much though. Via Settembre XX seemed like a lot of expensive shops or small outlets; it all seemed like a bit of a disaster.

Back to the hotel to enjoy the delights of a comfortable room, except the rattle was back. This time before things got out of hand I got my room changed. Outside of a swap of bath for shower, it was a great improvement. Quiet as a graveyard. It even looked like there was a wireless network I could hook into, but I could never get it beyond a non-functioning single bar of connectivity. Things were getting better.

The restaurant I tried brought me down to size again. Expensive and poor. The proprietor gave me a free first course, but hardly a glass of wine (though I asked, or thought I asked, for a quarter litre). The octopus was a revolting flesh colour and badly cooked. Then a coffee was pushed in front of me and I thought this was another freebie. Unfortunately it had been meant for another table, though they charged me for it anyway. It all took forever too, so it was just after halftime before I got to The Tartan Bar. Again the usual Italian staff who didn't understand "Irlandese". There was a tv though and a game was being played, but who? Why hadn't they got the Ireland match on? There was something about the blue shirts.... Of course, Italy were playing at the same time, though from the amount of interest being shown by the Italians in the bar, it might as well have been Indonesia. Nevertheless the Ireland game was out. I had a McEwan's (nice), and left.

The next day I did the museums etc.. The Palazzo Bianco, Palazzo Rosso and the Museo Tursi are all connected and the one ticket gets you into all. I spent a happy three hours or so, but most of the work is by relatively minor figures (Pielo, Ferrari, Cambiaso). The one exception is a Caravaggio. "Ecce Homo" remains with you. Christ, awaiting crucifixion, stands eyes cast down, his captor behind and another figure, the one that captures your gaze, stares you in the face presenting Christ as a question. It's pretty dramatic and bold both for its time and for today. Caravaggio could paint, used light wonderfully and colour powerfully, but here his sense of drama is as important as anything. Great stuff.

What were really annoying were the women attendants. They ran behind you and then before you, trying to get to the room you'd next enter before you could get in and do harm. Constantly I was reminded "No flash!". I was really ready to do something dangerous, little old ladies or not. In contrast one male attendant only got up out of his seat when I asked about photography. Do what you want, and then he waved me on. One last item of interest here was the Paganini Room, containing memorabilia of the famous violinist. Contrary to what you might expect his instrument of choice was not a Stradivarius, but a violin made by "Del Gesu", the Cannonade. Paginini sold a copy of it to his pupil and that too is displayed here. There's something endearing about the old fiddle; you can see where it's worn by hand and chin, and yet here it is, outworn its master and now celebrated in its own right in a glass case.

The remains of St John the Baptist are supposedly kept in the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, so I gave that a look next. Although the ashes themselves seem to be locked up, there is enough religious firepower there in the cellar to give the Ark of the Covenant a run for its money. Within a few feet of stone are housed: a.) the Holy Grail (or a broken glass dish that some claim is the Grail; Napoleon's soldiers thought it was emerald, but smashed it when they found it wasn't), b.) wood from THE Cross, c.) the bones of St Anne, d.) the bones of St James (of Apostolic fame), e.) the dish Salome put John the Baptist's head on after her little dance, f.) the containers for John's ashes, and g.) the hair of the Virgin Mary. When little Damian grows up and starts kicking off the last days, I know where I'm holing up.


Coming back in the bus the night of The Tartan Bar, I saw that all my earlier feelings were correct; this is a bit of a ghost town. There is nothing going on. No real pubs or nightclubs; the kids must be all growing up into psychopaths here, bored out of their skulls. If someone were to set up a real Irish bar, show them how it's done, or even, God forbid, a Templebar, what would Genoa become? Nice, probably. In the end it's just a bit of a Marilyn Monroe; beautiful but dead.

I decided on my next destination and arranged accommodation. Verona.

Verona

A spick and span bald man in tie and coordinated clothes picked his nose so everyone in the train station waiting room could see, but especially me. Nothing much else to do in this pleasant place, I guess.

I had no problem getting a ticket to Milan and than one to Verona. Let us not relate once more how people chose to stand only at my window, despite lots of other windows, and despite the fact they had chairs in the compartment and didn't need to stand. The train itself was late and arrived just as my connecting trin pulled away. Luckily I was not alone in this predicament and they let myself and others get on another one bound for Verona ten minutes later. I had a comfortable First Class seat (for some reason) and arrived once more in good spirits. There was some trouble finding the hotel, but it's fine, I get wireless if I stick the laptop out the window and Verona seems to have a bit of a buzz about it. Lots of people around, lots of restaurants and there was even a big concert or something going on in the Roman Arena (the third biggest in Italy, I believe). Roll on tomorrow.