During the night, I could feel pain from my left 'big toe' - gout again. I
had a mild attack about a week ago and treated it with Ibuprofen that I
bought from the chemist, but one pill seemed to do the trick and so I didn't
bother bringing those tablets with me. Fortunately, there is a chemist
situated less than 100m from the hotel, so I hobbled over there as soon as I
could and bought more Ibuprofen 200 mg. During the day, the pain wore off,
so I was able to walk better; I took another pill in the evening.
After a stroll through the historic town choosing a different route from
before, we arrived at the train station in order to catch a train to Genova.
There are several stations in Genova; we alighted at the teminus, Genova
Brignale. The plan was to get on the Genova
Hop on/Hop off bus that I assumed would have a stop near the train station - it didn't.
After some dillying and dallying, we took a taxi to the aquarium.
Before going in, we saw that there was a stop for that bus where we alighted
the taxi; after a short wait, the bus came so we boarded it. We were handed
headphones and not asked for our tickets, so we rode for free. Just as well,
because what we saw was not very inspiring. When the bus came round to the
aquarium again, we alighted.
After waiting in a short queue, I bought tickets; being over 65, we were
eligible for a 15% discount so our tickets cost 27€ each. I know that I am
not doing this justice, but the aquarium was very good. There were many
types of sea organisms on display, ranging in size from miniature sea
horses and jellyfish to large sharks and dolphins. This seems to have been
the first time I have seen a sea horse at close range, and at first I
couldn't understand how they managed to move; eventually I saw a small
dorsal fin, and apparently they also have pectoral fins on their head that
are used for steering (thank you, Gemini AI).
After a short interlude in the cafeteria for an onion foccacio, we carried
on to see more sights. Eventually the tour finished and we were outside.
Yesterday, I wrote
There are a few gelateria in Rapallo that display their goods so that
one can choose by sight as oppose to name; I'm hoping that I will find
my favourite mint choc chip flavour.
As one can guess, outside the aquarium was a small cafeteria that
displayed its ice cream as well as listing them, so finally I had my first
taste of mint choc chip (in Italian, "menta", which is the same in Israel.
I'm always afraid that pistaccio will be substituted for peppermin). It
wasn't as good as I remembered, probably because this was a commerical
outlet who do not make their own ice cream.
After finishing our ice cream, we went to the taxi rank and took one back
to Brignale, where we waited about 30 minutes for our train. The Italian
train service works differently from the Israeli - this may be because there
are different companies operating on the same lines. In Israel, there is a
fixed price for every journey and it doesn't matter what the time of day is.
Here, the same journey can have different prices. I saw that there was a
train to Rome whose first stop was at Rapallo; had we travelled on this
train, the price would have been far higher than the price that we paid for
a local train that made about seven stops before arriving in Rapallo. The
ticket in the morning was slightly cheaper than the ticket in the late
afternoon because the morning was off-peak whereas the evening was probably
considered to be in the rush hour.
Back in Rapallo, we made the compulsory stop in Carrefour (milk, water,
etc) before carrying on home to the hotel. Underneath our balcony is a
restaurant that is a subsidiary of the hotel; we had been warned that is
best to make a reservation first, and as today was Saturday, meaning
restaurants would be full, I made a reservation for another hour. We ate
grilled "fish of the day", expertly filleted by one of the waiters. This was
supposed to be served with seasonable vegetables, but there was a slight
misunderstanding with the waiter: my wife wanted a salad instead of the
vegetables but I didn't, so initially I was served with the fish (much more
than the fillets that we ate a few nights ago) and nothing else. Never
mind.
This day in blog history:
| Title | Tags | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction | Personal | |
| 83 | The happiness formula | Psychology, Martin Seligman | |
| 399 | At risk | MI5, Stella Rimington, Liz Carlyle | |
| 400 | At risk/2 | MI5, Stella Rimington, Liz Carlyle | |
| 627 | Late November/December 1973: my gap year, part 4 | Israel, Kibbutz, Gap year | |
| 973 | Central sleep apnea | Health, CPAP | |
| 1070 | A legacy of spies 2/How old is George Smiley? | John Le Carre | |
| 1336 | What a weekend! | Delphi, Musical instruments, Weather | |
| 1526 | The ink black heart | Cormoran Strike | |
| 1815 | New goggles | Swimming |
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