Look out Europe, here I come!

You may recall my recent post about the scent of cities, Rome in particular? Well, I'm here to make my report.

We visited several cities in Italy, one in France and one in Spain over the past week and each had their own distinctive feel. Only one had distinctive scents that made me sit up and take notice: Genoa, and there were two.

The first was by the harbor, which we walked almost from end to end. We'd docked already in several cities by that point, but this was the first time I got a real whiff of the sea. A slightly fishy smell that wasn't unpleasant at all. It reminded me of walks along Lake Ontario when I was a kid. The second odor was more modern: car fumes. Genoa is a more modern city in Italy - mostly because the Allies (us) bombed the hell out of it during WWII and they have rebuilt much of it. There was also a city plan put into place in the mid to late 1800's that brought in a lot of Romanesque influences - and made for somewhat wider streets than we've seen in other Italian cities. This has allowed for more cars, busses, trucks - you name it, they're driving through the streets. Several marble facades are now black with the exhaust of so many vehicles.

But I never noticed anything else in the way of olfactory delights or distresses in any other place we went. After all, gelato doesn't have a scent...and we ate a LOT of gelato! A friend of mine had told me we should never pass a gelato stand without having some - and we took her advice to heart.

I've kept a journal of our trip and, over the next few days, I'll post the highlights here, now that I have a good Internet source.

For now, arrevederci and, Play safe!
Diana