Welcome to Savona, Italy

September 29

What an incredible way to wake up in the early morning. I went out to our balcony as the sun was just peaking over the distant mountain top. It slowly rose minute by minute until the red-orange ball was high in the sky and the intimate seaside town of Savona was clearly visible and glimmering from the newly risen sun.

The ship docked in Savona around 8:3oam and we were among the first to disembark, ready for our exciting morning exploring a city known to neither of us.

We crossed the foot bridge and found ourselves pretty much right in the center of town. It was only a few blocks walk to the Theatre Square which housed the Savona Symphony hall as well as several gorgeous century old apartment buildings and businesses. We journeyed down a beautiful tree-lined avenue full of great shops and plenty of visual stimulation. Knowing nothing about the town we simply turned a corner when something caught our eye and without even trying we came to a municipal building that housed a theater and the current production was Shakespeare’ Antonio E Cleopatra (as they say it in Italy.)

We ventured down another street and came to the Savona Duomo which is exquisite inside as most Duomo’s are but this had a few unique features as well as a hidden secret that we were introduced to by a docent who worked for the tourist office of Savona. One of the unique aspects of this Duomo was the holy water basin which was as large as the base of a garden fountain. I think a small person could have taken a bath in it and there were a few others along the inside walls of the Duomo that were not as large but certainly were in no way like most others you see. Now the very special secret was revealed to us by a lovely man who took us through an enclosed garden area to the Cappella Sistina (Sistine Chapel). It was named the Sistine Chapel by Pope Sisto IV who commissioned the chapel in the late 1400’s having just prior commissioned the chapel in Saint Peter’s in Rome also, as everyone is aware, called the Sistine Chapel. This intimate chapel did not contain any art work by Michelangelo but it has many other virtues to boast about. Although the current chapel’s visual appeal can be credited to one of Pope Sisto’s decedents who in the 1800’s refurbished it in the Rocco style making it, at the time, more modern and much more pleasing to the eye since the original chapel was built as a funeral venue and also a burial place for Pope Sisto’s mother and father. The original chapel was dark and mournful and the refurbished one is more like an opera house than a chapel and is truly a sight to be seen. I particularly loved the organ but was asked, after having taken one picture already of the alter, to refrain from photography for the sake of the art. I of course obeyed so I have no pictures to show off of the organs beauty. Among the many colorful ornamental details that adorn this chapel are countless renderings of oak trees which I was told it is what the Pope’s Italian family name translates to in English. I love all these little details as you can tell.

After leaving the Duomo we headed down various streets just enjoying the architecture and generally pleasant feeling of this harbor town in Northern Italy. One thing architecturally that I found very interesting is the many foot bridges the connected one building to another. They are all over town and we stopped to ask a local what their purpose was and he was kind enough to respond that they were once to allow people to go from building to building without having to go down to the street but in recent years they have become private gardens and parks and usually have a separating wall that gives the inhabitants on each side of the bridge their privacy. The gentlemen also informed us that these foot bridges are solely visible in Savona. They, according to him, were begun there and pretty much Savona is the only place that adopted the use of them. You see them on every street and particularly in each of the town squares as they connect in most cases each building in the four corners. I really enjoyed the varying designs and the creative way people have adapted them to fit their own tastes and needs. It is a great example of taking something that was once useful but now obsolete and not tearing it down but reengineering them to fit the needs of people today.

The next stop was a Mercado which was only slightly smaller than the one we went to last week in Grotta. We didn’t buy anything but we were chastised by an Italian woman, not knowing my mother understood Italian, who said as we passed her, each of us snacking on apples as we walked, that what was wrong with these people eating and walking at the same time. Clearly, and we did understand this just having been in Mirabella, food is a very social and important thing in this country and it is to be savored and enjoyed with family and friends and by no means while one is walking anywhere. Our faux pas but we have learned our lesson and will now comply with local standards. When in Rome as they say.

We ventured off to a small park to rest a bit and enjoy the street musicians from Peru. They reminded me of the Peruvian musicians in New York except they were playing some Italian songs. We of course had to buy their CD as they played so beautifully and many of the songs were Italian so how could we possibly resist not to mention it is always nice to support the artists.

We headed back to the ship as we were having lunch and then off to relax in the spa. I really love this spa! Mom joined me for awhile in the spa and we met another mother and daughter who were from Saragossa, Sicily. So lovely and I practiced a little Italian and the daughter practiced a little English as we enjoyed the warm, gorgeously tiled relaxation chairs in the Turkish sauna. Mom and I met up again to see a Flamenco show here on the boat and the music, costumes and talented dancers made it a very entertaining evening event. Dinner was great and the lovely couples we met the evening before were equally engaging this night as well.