Up! Up! And away! The Write Way to Travel

Hello there!

Tomorrow I'm off to New Caledonia in the South Pacific! I wrote about it here. So excited! Another research trip from which I should glean several travel articles. It'll be fun living and learning about a new country/culture for 11 days while my trusty critique partners review the novel I have been editing forever.

Seeing as I have no time to maintain several blogs, including my dedicated travel blog, I need to include more travel on this blog. I hope you enjoy that focus, as don't we all like to visit new places, even vicariously.

I've been practising using my iPad Air 2 for everything and today was the first time I've tried adding a blog post. As the iPad is my travel notebook--I take photos of everything rather than writing down details--I needed to know if I can leave the laptop at home. Great success with this blog post. Adding photos was a breeze.

I got into travel writing via a competition. Having just returned from a European trip, I wrote about something unfortunate that happened to us--my laptop, which included all our photos of our trip so far, our CD downloads of photos, and jewellery I'd stuffed into the case at the last minute, idiot!--was stolen. You certainly live and learn.

HERE IS MY FIRST EVER TRAVEL ARTICLE--GENOA, ITALY

I love the medieval heart of European cities, and Genoa (Genova), capital of Liguria in Italy, has the biggest--an immense centre of stunning palazzo, theatres, museums, cathedrals and art galleries. Yet Genoa, painted with such bold brush strokes, has a dark side.

I was enchanted by her superb setting--hemmed in between sea and hills covered with terraced pastel villas, but found that in Genoa many buildings are rough around the edges like some of her less savoury characters.


I headed for the Strade Nuove, and marvelled at the Unesco Heritage buildings. I fearlessly wandered the labyrinth of dark alleys (caruggi) with buildings so close you could reach out and touch both sides. I was awed by the beauty of her sun-touched squares where faded noble buildings stand side by side with poor crumbling houses.Fresh food markets overflow with cheeses the size of Fiats, and the memory of earthy Genovese pesto drizzled on silky pasta still has me swooning.




‘You like, si?’

‘Si, I like!”

After a week discovering this city of Christopher Columbus, culture, colour and caruggi, I was jolted back to reality. My laptop was snatched inside the historical and ornate P. Principe Railway Station, where illegal immigrants lurk.

‘It’s always Australians and New Zealanders,’ sniffed the irritated Polizia, who obviously would have preferred to be sipping a cappuccino to dealing with me. Frantic form filling followed…

I collapsed into my carriage, determined to enjoy the trip to Milan, then focusing on snow falling in Lake Como, our next overnighter.

The evening passeggiata ("little walk") between 5 and 7pm.
Take the funicular up the hill to watch the sunset from the
best vantage point.

Goodbye Genoa! Goodbye laptop! I’d lost hundreds of photos, but felt smug about my favourites I’d loaded onto Facebook! And I still had all those I’d taken of beautiful Genoa!

Look on the bright side of life wherever you are, whatever happens! I just hope whoever stole my belongings needed it more than I did.

© Denise Covey 2008


I hope you enjoyed my travel article. I didn't win the competition, but it opened up a whole new world for me.

• Do you like to travel? 
• Do you have a favourite destination?
• Have you ever been robbed? (Funny how I learned the Italian word for 'I've been robbed!' (mi hanno derubato!)  before I left Paris where I was warned...

Travelling with Denise