The Wandering Warners: Seniors Seeing the World: By Rail to Rapallo, Italy

After our busy Saturday touring the big city of Florence, we had more modest ambitions for Sunday

Docked in Genoa (Italian Genova), the sixth largest city in Italy, we thought it would be a good day to escape to the charming waterfront town of Rapallo, about a one-hour train ride south, a few minutes past the far more famous Portofino.

It was a 10-15 minute walk from the ship to the train station, and we only got lost once, missing the sign to the Treno and walking down two flights of stairs to the city’s Metro before climbing back up and finding the way.

We still managed to catch a train, and arrive in Rapallo 55 minutes later. We walked down to the water and joined the Italians who like to passeggiare, to stroll or promenade. When better than a sunny Sunday?

Since so many Italians are apartment dwellers, it is common to see a variety of dogs promenading with their owners.

To help defend the small village against 16th century attacks by the Ottoman Turks and the Barbary pirates, this Castello sul Mare (Castle-on-the-Sea) was built in 1551.

We especially enjoyed the scenery and atmosphere, realizing this was our final stop of the trip in Italy, tomorrow being France’s island of Corsica.

We stopped at a little joint for a light lunch.

We had ample time to take a train back to Genoa, meeting up with Bud and Jessie to lose respectably at Team Trivia with a score of 9/15. (What color is a polar bear’s skin? Black).

The evening featured our first visit to Toscana, Oceania”s Italian specialty restaurant. We enjoyed a variety of dishes, including calimari for the table…