Day 15, Genoa/Parma

Today has been a very full day! Gramma sat out the walking tour of Genoa, which was a good idea given the hills and the uneven sidewalks. Our tourguide pointed out that Genoa is not as obvious as some of the other touristed cities in Italy, and you really have to search and explore to find the really impressive things there. This is relative, however-- I found the whole place pretty impressive. It was completely different from Torino, and has the kind of street layout that could get you very lost very quickly! I was having trouble with the photography, because I just didn't know where to start. There were so many truly magnificent (see? I'm using my opera vocabulary) buildings that surrounded me in that city. It's like every inch of space in every dimension is decorated by some amazing artist. To take a picture of just one thing is to make a huge understatement of the experience, so I mostly kept my camera at my side and just took it all in with my own senses. I did get this one very adorable lion, though. It makes me: a) want a lion like that on or near my house (stone of course) and b) wonder if Bill ("Pickles") is telling the truth about his dad having a pet lion.
After our walking tour, the whole group left the hotel in Genoa and we drove to a wonderful restaurant by the sea, where they served us all kinds of seafood. We had anchovies as an antipasta, warm squid and shrimp salad after that, then the pasta course, and then some kind of white fish that was totally delicious. Actually, all of it was totally delicious, and a welcome change from all the veal and pork we've been eating. Gramma and I sat at opposite ends of the table, so her lunch conversation was completely different from mine! I got to talk a bit with Paul and Eleanor Sheedy, who hail from the Boston area. Really really nice folks, and it's their first time in Europe, so I'm sure this whole experience is extremely special to them. It's nice to share all this wonderful food, scenery, music, and culture with people as kind and gentle as these.

After our big fishy lunch, we drove for more than two hours to the city of Parma, where we had just a very quick rest and then it was time to get ready for the opera. Tonight we saw "Luisa Miller", which didn't impress me nearly as much as last night's opera, but it was still interesting to watch. Our group got together over a bottle of red wine after the show and had a discussion about what we'd just seen. The unanimous decision was that the sets were awful, the tenor was fabulous, and the soprano has seen better days. Even I could tell a huge difference between tonight's soprano and last night's. Last night's lady made my spine tingle, and she made it look SO easy and elegant. Tonight's leading lady was quite the opposite... But still, you have to be impressed by the power of these voices, quality aside. We all enjoyed the acoustics in this opera house too. It's shaped like a horseshoe, and like Dad's favorite whispering walls in Philadelphia, sound just travels right along the curved surface, so that the singer on stage almost sounds like he's standing behind you. Gramma really enjoyed it, and she says that's because she knew a lot of the music from this opera. We're seeing some of Verdi's lesser-known operas on this tour, as well as one of his best-known, "La Traviata," which will come in a few days. Gramma has guaranteed that I'll like that one. Tomorrow night we'll see "Oberto," which was the first opera Verdi ever wrote.