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Genoa Getting around Genoa is quite easy as the town is a kind of rainbow stripe between the sea and the mountains. Once you have fixed some main base points, the modern Expo area, for example, or the Romanic cathedral of San Lorenzo or if you go further by car the Lanterna, the ancient light at the entrance of the port, symbol of the town, you can easily go around. Not many street people know the English language but you can find around the main town sites traffic wardens with the languages flags on the arm. You can also ask information to public museums or palaces officials where people can speak different languages. Along the streets also ask young people who now with computers and internet and good language lessons at school might be able and happy to help you or sometime carry you around. In the old town now live people from many West European and African countries so you can find cultures with different speaking languages. If you have difficulties or problems you can phone to the AITI (Italian Translators and Interpreters Association) Genoa office where you can get in touch with the persons of particular languages and field branches You can also have help by members. Going around by car is nice so you can easily take a view of the town. Within an easy reach you can get up to the hills and to see the whole town with its beautiful coast. Things are getting worse if you plan to go viewing or shopping around the center. It is better to park in the allowed areas (there is also a parking area for foreigners in P.za Matteotti but it is quite small) and go by bus or just walking. Going around by bus is perhaps the best choice. One ticket costs 1.500 It. Liras, (0.75 Euro) and it lasts for 1 and half our all around the town including the tube. There are special tickets in accordance to the period you intend to go around during the day or the week or the month. Tickets are not sold on the bus but you can find them at newsagents, tobacconists, and many other shops around town. Genoa has a small tube line which runs only in one part of the town. So if you do not have particular places to go that are specifically mentioning the tube, forget about it. You can go around the town by bicycle. It is a very good personal choice but while it is nice (apart from traffic cars) around the outskirt and the riviera of the town, it is not quite so in the town center and besides you can inhale more benzine in this way than going walking or by car. Deserve yourself a good town trekking walking pair of shoes and you can really start a nice visit full of interesting things. Unless you are particularly interested in special subjects, one day is enough to have a general view of the center. Then you can plan in detail which place you prefer to see best. Remember that many places have cumulative entrance tickets. For example if you want to see the Acquario di Genova and then going to see something at Palazzo Ducale (which are very near) you can have just one ticket for both at special price. So always ask for the tours valid for that day. Enrico Pelos, Genoa editor, Liguria (general) editor, world66.com, Genoa, Italy. pelos@tn.village.it http://www.global.village.it/~pelos/index.htm
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